AI Adoption in Customer Success: What ServiceNow Is Actually Doing with Neil Sparkes

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Neil Sparkes, AVP of Customer Excellence at ServiceNow UK&I, has a global mandate to move agentic AI out of the experiment phase and into live production inside heavily regulated enterprises. In this episode he breaks down why efficiency gains no longer land with a CFO, how ServiceNow benchmarks real cost savings before and after agents, and where to draw the line between what an agent executes on its own and what still needs a human. We also get into the AI divide that is separating fast adopters from everyone else, why token bills are landing on finance desks with no ROI attached, and whether the SaaS model actually survives all this. Neil also shares why he brought in external training on value conversations for his team, and what he thinks CS will be held accountable for next year.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

03:19 Meet Neil "Sparky" Sparks of ServiceNow

16:50 Getting regulated enterprises to adopt agentic AI

22:05 Why efficiency gains no longer convince a CFO

25:00 Treat an AI agent like a new employee

31:10 Start here: low risk, zero human touch workflows

35:06 Separating your personal AI from your work AI

39:30 The AI divide and token bills with no ROI

42:13 Ripping out your tech stack: is SaaS dead?

49:41 What AI is doing to renewals and upsells

Connect with Neil Sparkes: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-sparkes/

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