ServiceNow has once again delivered on what Indian IT firms have been promising every time—turning generative AI into actual revenue.
In its second-quarter earnings, the California-based enterprise software company posted $3.11 billion in AI subscription revenue, a 23% jump from last year.
The company attributed its strong performance to the continued adoption of Now Assist, its flagship generative AI platform, through which it’s earning revenues.
“Every business process in every industry is being refactored for agentic AI,” said ServiceNow chair and CEO Bill McDermott in a release.
ServiceNow’s CFO Gina Mastantuono said that bookings for Now Assist “surpassed expectations,” and it was driven by an increase in the deals.
“ServiceNow holds a distinct advantage, because we’re the only company that has AI plus data plus workflows on one platform, and in an agentic AI world, that’s a game changer and a huge differentiator,” she said in an interview with CRN.
Deal Volumes Grew 50% with AI in Them
According to Mastantuono, AI is now embedded across the platform—and the results show.
In the second quarter, she said twenty-one deals involved five or more of their AI products. “Deal volume increased by 50% quarter-over-quarter, and they secured their largest Now Assist AI deal to date, valued at over $20 million,” Mastantuono said.
The company is not just leading the AI race, but also running it themselves and that makes them stand out from most Indian IT firms.
While TCS is incorporating AI agents into 150+ client conversations and Infosys is running 300+ agentic AI projects, they are not reporting yet on how much money they’re making from it.
Wipro, on the brighter side, had generative AI in most of its deals—but no breakdown on revenues despite doubling the total deals for the quarter. HCLTech was happily flaunting its OpenAI deal throughout the quarter despite a 10% decline in profit.
In contrast, ServiceNow had 528 customers with contracts worth over $5 million annually, up from 508 last quarter.
Mastantuono was also quick to point out that while the US federal sector is facing headwinds—tightening budgets and evolving mission demands—ServiceNow still closed six new federal customers in Q2.
“We’re delivering exactly what federal agencies need most right now. It’s what the administration is driving: speed, efficiency, modernisation, and scale, especially for agentic AI,” she said in the interview.
This is a significant distinction. While Indian firms continue to pilot AI projects in silos, often unsure about whether to bet on GPT or Mistral or Claude, ServiceNow is undertaking enterprise-wide rollouts with measurable ROI.
She also noted that the company’s Workflow Data Fabric, which enables customers to integrate real-time data from any source to power AI, was included in 17 of the top 20 deals. “RaptorDB, which is our next-gen database for AI, continues to gain traction,” Mastantuono added.
So Indian IT?
For Indian IT, which often points to its large client base and domain expertise, ServiceNow’s results are a wake-up call. The company is not only capitalising on the hype around AI but also building a repeatable, monetizable business model around it.
Just last quarter, it said Now Assist is on track to hit $1 billion in ACV by 2026, up from $250 million now. That projection already looks conservative.
The company is also showing signs of international strength. “Every major region beat expectations,” Mastantuono said, underscoring how the AI strategy isn’t limited to North America.
In Q1, ServiceNow had declared that AI is not just a product enhancement—it’s a business. “We are leading the AI race because we ourselves are running it,” McDermott said back then. This quarter only reaffirmed that statement.
Meanwhile, Indian IT’s obsession with GenAI pilots and proof-of-concepts continues. There are a few signs of full-scale deployments, let alone disclosures of AI-driven revenue.
Even Accenture is openly attributing $1.5 billion in generative AI bookings for Q3FY25, and Indian IT should be paying very close attention.
The big question now is whether Indian IT can ever catch up to ServiceNow or Accenture’s AI before it’s too late.
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