ServiceNow has agreed to acquire the technology of FriendlyData, which makes it easy for non‑technical users to ask quantitative questions in plain English and get fast results through direct answers or data visualizations.
FriendlyData’s natural language query (NLQ) technology will help reduce the amount of time spent figuring out how to ask questions technically; rather, it allows users to just ask a question, and then use the freed up time to act on the answer. NLQ technology will be embedded into the interfaces of the Now Platform and guide users to relevant and related Performance Analytics dashboards and reporting.
When used in the Now Platform, the technology will reduce some of the complexity that slows down work, including:
- Outdated customer and employee work experiences that are not intuitive and easy to use like the ones people experience as consumers.
- Inability to act due to reliance on time‑consuming manual processes.
- Burdens on business analysts and data engineers who can’t keep pace with the increasing volume of requests coming from non‑technical users within their company.
“ServiceNow is bringing NLQ capabilities to the Now Platform, enabling companies to ask technical questions in plain English and receive direct answers,” said Pat Casey, SVP, Development and Operations at ServiceNow. “With this technical enhancement, our goal is to allow anyone to easily make data driven decisions, increasing productivity and driving businesses forward faster.”
ServiceNow plans to re‑platform FriendlyData’s NLQ technology, extending the Now Platform’s intelligence capabilities by making NLQ interfaces available across ServiceNow applications for IT, Human Resources, Security Operations, Customer Service Management, partner products and for developers.
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