Post by Stefan Berger

From Aspen to Australia When I joined ServiceNow in 2012, Aspen was the current release. A colleague told me not to bother learning about it — Berlin was just around the corner. That surprised me. In my experience, customers stuck with old software for years. Upgrades were painful, release cycles stretched beyond two years, and nobody rushed to adopt the latest version. Not at ServiceNow. Three major releases per year. Upgrades handled by ServiceNow. Customers upgraded quickly to the current release. That was my first lesson: this company operated differently. My second lesson came fast. Enterprise IT at the time was a patchwork — ITSM on one system, CMDB on another, automation on a third, monitoring somewhere else. Multiple databases. Multiple stacks. Proprietary connectors stitching it all together. A nightmare to manage. Not at ServiceNow. One database. One application layer. One UI. Everything was running on a single architecture. Even as we acquired companies and expanded into new markets, every new technology was 'replatformed' into the same architecture. That discipline is one of the biggest reasons customers trust us. We entered the AI era early — starting with machine learning, natural language processing and intelligent chatbots in 2017. But our latest release, Australia, is something else entirely. Generative AI is deeply embedded across the platform. 60+ use cases. AI agents. Autonomous workers. Every customer department is supported with data, workflows, security, and AI. When I started in 2012, I couldn't have imagined this. To every colleague, business partner, and customer who helped build this — thank you. It has been an extraordinary journey. And sometimes, quietly and humble, I think to myself: I was part of this. I contributed to something that matters. What a ride.