Most organizations still think of ServiceNow as a ticketing system.
That framing is not just wrong—it’s actively harmful.

Ticketing was the entry point, not the destination.

The real enterprise problem is not tool sprawl. It’s that work has no single authoritative state, no durable ownership, and no enforceable path from “someone asked” to “it’s done.” Enterprises are digitally rich—full of platforms, apps, and automation—but operationally fragmented because they lack a true operating layer.

This episode lays out a clear architectural model that explains:

Why Microsoft is where intent is created

Why ServiceNow is where intent must become execution

Why tickets track pain, but workflows control outcomes

And why AI without workflow governance accelerates entropy instead of eliminating it

The core insight is simple but uncomfortable:
Enterprises don’t fail because they lack systems. They fail because execution lives in side channels.

1. The Fundamental Misunderstanding

ServiceNow is not a ticketing tool.

Tickets are containers for pain.
Workflows are systems of control.

When organizations treat ticketing as the operating model, they optimize for:

  • Faster logging

  • Better categorization

  • Cleaner dashboards

Meanwhile, the real failures continue:

  • Approvals happen in chat

  • Exceptions bypass policy

  • Ownership dissolves across teams

  • Audit trails are reconstructed after the fact

Ticketing creates visibility.
Execution requires enforceable state.


2. Digitally Rich, Operationally Fragmented

Modern enterprises already have:

  • Microsoft 365

  • ERP systems

  • HR systems

  • Security platforms

  • Finance, procurement, facilities tools

What they don’t have is a shared execution layer.

Instead, they operate as:

  • Inboxes

  • Teams channels

  • Portals

  • Email threads

  • Spreadsheets

  • Shared mailboxes

Each queue has local truth.
None of them have end-to-end truth.

That distinction is why organizations have activity everywhere—and progress nowhere.


3. Where Work Actually Starts

Work doesn’t start in portals.
It starts where humans already live:

  • Chats

  • Emails

  • Meetings

  • Documents

That’s why Microsoft is the intent plane.

People describe needs in natural language:

  • “We need a new laptop”

  • “Can we approve this vendor today?”

  • “This account is compromised”

  • “They start Monday”

Intent is born as conversation, not records.

The failure begins when organizations force humans to context-switch without preserving intent, ownership, or state.


4. Why This Is Not a UX Problem

Every jump between systems costs more than time.

It costs:

  • Loss of state

  • Loss of accountability

  • Loss of evidence

People don’t remember what they did.
They remember where they did it.

That’s how organizations end up saying:

“We don’t know what happened.”


5. The Queue Fallacy

Most enterprises think they have workflows.

What they actually have is queues:

  • Requests wait

  • Humans improvise

  • Side channels decide

  • Systems record later

This creates:

  • Shadow approvals

  • Shortcut exceptions

  • Permanent “temporary” access

  • Compliance drift

Queues track pressure.
Workflows control outcomes.


6. Tickets vs Workflows (The Line That Matters)

A ticket:

  • Logs pain

  • Enables triage

  • Supports SLAs

  • Assigns responsibility

A workflow:

  • Defines sequence

  • Enforces ownership

  • Requires evidence

  • Prevents skipping steps

If your process can advance because someone typed “approved” in chat, you don’t have a workflow.

You have conditional chaos.


7. System of Record vs System of Action

This episode reframes platforms using an older—but more accurate—lens:

Systems of Record

  • ERP

  • HRIS

  • Financial systems

They are:

  • Correct by design

  • Slow on purpose

  • Built for integrity, audit, and durability

They preserve truth.
They do not orchestrate humans.

Systems of Action

This is the missing layer.

They must:

  • Hold authoritative state

  • Enforce sequencing

  • Coordinate humans

  • Produce defensible evidence

Most organizations try to make systems of record behave like systems of action—and fail.


8. Why Microsoft and ServiceNow Are Not Competitors

The correct architecture is a split-brain model by design.

  • Microsoft = Engagement & Intent

    • Chats, meetings, email, documents

    • Human context and pressure

    • Collaboration at scale

  • ServiceNow = Execution & Control

    • Workflow state

    • Routing and approvals

    • Evidence and auditability

Microsoft is the front door.
ServiceNow is the factory floor.

Trying to crown one “single pane of glass” creates brittle systems and blurred authority.


9. Why AI Changes Everything—and Makes Governance Mandatory

AI excels at:

  • Summarizing conversations

  • Extracting intent

  • Suggesting next steps

  • Reducing cognitive load

AI fails catastrophically when:

  • It writes directly to execution systems

  • It bypasses workflow state

  • It operates without audit constraints

Read can be fast and forgiving.
Write must be governed.

AI belongs at the edges of execution, not at the center.


10. Real Scenarios That Expose the Truth

Employee Onboarding

Not an HR ticket.
A cross-domain supply chain:

  • Identity

  • Access

  • Devices

  • Security

  • Compliance

If the chain isn’t enforced, onboarding becomes chaos with a calendar attached.

Security Incident Response

  • Teams for collaboration

  • ServiceNow for controlled execution

War rooms coordinate.
Workflows contain blast radius.

Finance & Procurement

  • Intent starts in chat

  • Policy enforcement happens in workflows

  • ERP records the outcome

Approvals in email feel fast.
Audits make them expensive.

Major Incidents & Emergency Change

Speed without control creates repeat outages.
Change management exists to prevent today’s fix from becoming tomorrow’s incident.


11. The Operating Layer Model

Every enterprise operation follows the same chain:

Events → Workflows → Decisions → Outcomes

Most organizations:

  • Drown in events

  • Improvise workflows

  • Outsource decisions to side channels

  • Act surprised by inconsistent outcomes

The operating layer exists to make that chain deterministic.


12. The One Sentence That Matters

Microsoft captures intent.
ServiceNow executes intent.

That line is not a slogan.
It is an enforcement boundary.


13. The Final Takeaway

Enterprises don’t lose to technology.
They lose to entropy under pressure.

The future is not smarter chatbots.
It is governed execution.

When:

  • Humans generate intent

  • AI accelerates understanding

  • Workflows enforce reality

  • Systems record evidence

Automation finally survives contact with the real organization

Transcript

1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,680
Most organizations still talk about service now like it's the ticketing system.

2
00:00:03,680 --> 00:00:04,600
They are wrong.

3
00:00:04,600 --> 00:00:07,200
Ticketing was the entry point, not the destination.

4
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:09,480
The real enterprise problem isn't too many tools.

5
00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:14,840
It's that work has no single state, no owner, and no enforceable path from someone asked to.

6
00:00:14,840 --> 00:00:15,880
It's done.

7
00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:17,840
Microsoft is where intent shows up.

8
00:00:17,840 --> 00:00:20,200
Chats, emails, meetings, documents.

9
00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:23,080
Service now is where intent becomes execution.

10
00:00:23,080 --> 00:00:26,320
Routing, approvals, evidence, audit.

11
00:00:26,320 --> 00:00:29,440
In the next hour, this will get painfully obvious because workflows

12
00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:30,440
don't fail in theory.

13
00:00:30,440 --> 00:00:32,400
They fail in your org chart.

14
00:00:32,400 --> 00:00:36,520
The enterprise workflow problem, digitally rich, operationally fragmented.

15
00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:38,080
Enterprises are digitally rich.

16
00:00:38,080 --> 00:00:44,160
They have Microsoft 365, they have an ERP, they have a dozen best of breed tools for security,

17
00:00:44,160 --> 00:00:49,400
HR, facilities, finance, procurement, customer operations, and whatever else someone bought

18
00:00:49,400 --> 00:00:51,400
during the last incident review.

19
00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:55,360
And they're still operationally fragmented because having systems isn't the same as having

20
00:00:55,360 --> 00:00:57,360
an operating layer.

21
00:00:57,360 --> 00:01:00,240
What most environments actually have is a collection of queues.

22
00:01:00,240 --> 00:01:05,640
In boxes, teams, channels, portals, ticket forms, Excel trackers, and shared mailboxes.

23
00:01:05,640 --> 00:01:06,920
Each queue has local truth.

24
00:01:06,920 --> 00:01:08,400
None of them have end to end truth.

25
00:01:08,400 --> 00:01:10,160
That distinction matters.

26
00:01:10,160 --> 00:01:12,000
The typical day looks like this.

27
00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:15,360
Someone starts in teams or outlook because that's where people actually work.

28
00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:19,480
They describe a need, new laptop, new access, purchase approval, urgent security alert,

29
00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:23,200
production outage, intent is created as a message, not a record.

30
00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:24,880
Then the system forces a context switch.

31
00:01:24,880 --> 00:01:29,040
Go to a portal, find the right form, pick the right category, attach the right screenshot,

32
00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:31,760
retype the same story you already wrote in chat.

33
00:01:31,760 --> 00:01:34,320
Submit, wait, follow up, follow up again.

34
00:01:34,320 --> 00:01:37,520
This is not a user experience problem, it's an execution model problem.

35
00:01:37,520 --> 00:01:41,160
Every time someone jumps from teams to a portal to an email thread to a spreadsheet and

36
00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:43,400
back again, the organization is paying attacks.

37
00:01:43,400 --> 00:01:47,320
It's not just time, it's loss of state, loss of accountability, and loss of evidence.

38
00:01:47,320 --> 00:01:48,640
People don't remember what they did.

39
00:01:48,640 --> 00:01:49,920
They remember where they did it.

40
00:01:49,920 --> 00:01:52,920
And that becomes the root cause of, we don't know what happened.

41
00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:57,080
The worst part is what happens next, manual handoffs, approvals, escalations, exceptions,

42
00:01:57,080 --> 00:02:00,000
quick favors, side channel decisions in chat.

43
00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:03,400
These are entropy generators that they feel fast in the moment and they're catastrophic

44
00:02:03,400 --> 00:02:04,400
later.

45
00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:08,640
Because each exception bypasses the thing that makes an enterprise predictable, a controlled

46
00:02:08,640 --> 00:02:13,440
sequence of steps with clear ownership and an ordered trail that survives turnover and

47
00:02:13,440 --> 00:02:14,440
panic.

48
00:02:14,440 --> 00:02:18,040
So you end up with a business that can produce documents, send messages, and host meetings

49
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:21,480
at industrial scale, but can't reliably move work across boundaries.

50
00:02:21,480 --> 00:02:24,000
And that's why visibility fails.

51
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:25,480
Locally everyone can see their piece.

52
00:02:25,480 --> 00:02:26,920
I sent the email.

53
00:02:26,920 --> 00:02:28,200
I approved in chat.

54
00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:30,000
I deployed the fix.

55
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:32,000
Procurement is looking at it.

56
00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:33,160
Security said it was fine.

57
00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:34,360
Each team has a story.

58
00:02:34,360 --> 00:02:35,360
End to end.

59
00:02:35,360 --> 00:02:36,360
Nobody has the state machine.

60
00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:39,000
You get status everywhere and progress nowhere.

61
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,160
Now the comfortable objection is, but we have an ERP.

62
00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:43,160
Yes, you do.

63
00:02:43,160 --> 00:02:44,560
It records transactions.

64
00:02:44,560 --> 00:02:45,560
It doesn't root work.

65
00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:48,640
It's designed to preserve integrity, not orchestrate humans.

66
00:02:48,640 --> 00:02:50,240
And ERP is a system of record.

67
00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:51,240
That's not an insult.

68
00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:52,240
That's the point.

69
00:02:52,240 --> 00:02:55,040
It's slow by design because correctness matters more than speed.

70
00:02:55,040 --> 00:02:58,080
The next objection is, but we have Microsoft 365.

71
00:02:58,080 --> 00:02:59,080
Yes, you do.

72
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:02,120
It creates artifacts, emails, documents, meetings, chats, tasks.

73
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:05,440
It captures intent extremely well, but it doesn't enforce intent.

74
00:03:05,440 --> 00:03:06,880
It doesn't guarantee sequence.

75
00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:08,800
It doesn't decide who owns the next step.

76
00:03:08,800 --> 00:03:10,320
It doesn't compel evidence.

77
00:03:10,320 --> 00:03:12,680
It's a productivity surface, not an execution engine.

78
00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,680
So organizations try to patch the gap with automation.

79
00:03:15,680 --> 00:03:20,440
They build small flows, post a message, create a task, mirror a notification.

80
00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:24,440
Even those flows multiply, ownership disappears and governance never shows up.

81
00:03:24,440 --> 00:03:25,960
Shadow automation is not innovation.

82
00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:28,360
It's integration debt with a friendly UI.

83
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:31,360
And the longer it runs, the worse it gets.

84
00:03:31,360 --> 00:03:33,800
Connectors get overscoped to make it work.

85
00:03:33,800 --> 00:03:37,360
Service accounts become permanent super-users and nobody remembers why.

86
00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:39,320
This is the foundational mistake.

87
00:03:39,320 --> 00:03:42,160
Treating workflows like a side feature of tools.

88
00:03:42,160 --> 00:03:45,520
Instead of treating workflows as the thing the enterprise runs on, because the enterprise

89
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:47,000
already runs on workflows.

90
00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:48,800
They're just undocumented and unowned.

91
00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:50,440
And boarding isn't an HR ticket.

92
00:03:50,440 --> 00:03:52,440
It's a cross-domain supply chain.

93
00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:56,800
Identity, access, hardware, payroll, compliance and training.

94
00:03:56,800 --> 00:03:58,920
Security incident response isn't a team's chat.

95
00:03:58,920 --> 00:04:02,480
It's a controlled sequence of containment actions with approvals and evidence.

96
00:04:02,480 --> 00:04:04,680
Finance approvals aren't an email thread.

97
00:04:04,680 --> 00:04:08,080
They're policy enforcement with segregation of duties and auditability.

98
00:04:08,080 --> 00:04:09,840
Major incidents aren't a war room.

99
00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:13,800
They're coordinated human communication plus authoritative execution and change control.

100
00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:16,360
So when people say tools sprawl, they're not wrong.

101
00:04:16,360 --> 00:04:19,240
But the real problem is workflow fragmentation.

102
00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:23,520
Work starts in one place, gets decided in another, gets executed in the third and gets documented

103
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:24,840
maybe in a fourth.

104
00:04:24,840 --> 00:04:27,960
And that is the missing operating layer between people and systems.

105
00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:29,600
It is not optional.

106
00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:35,680
It will exist either by design, with governance or by accident, with entropy.

107
00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:37,760
The foundational misunderstanding.

108
00:04:37,760 --> 00:04:40,720
Tickets track pain, workflows control outcomes.

109
00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:42,200
Here's what most people miss.

110
00:04:42,200 --> 00:04:43,520
A ticket is not a workflow.

111
00:04:43,520 --> 00:04:45,160
A ticket is a container for pain.

112
00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:48,720
It's a log entry that says something is wrong or someone wants something.

113
00:04:48,720 --> 00:04:51,120
It's useful because enterprises need triage.

114
00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:52,120
They need cues.

115
00:04:52,120 --> 00:04:53,120
They need assignment.

116
00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:54,440
They need SLA's.

117
00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:56,600
But tickets don't control outcomes.

118
00:04:56,600 --> 00:05:00,760
Tickets just describe the problem while humans improvise a path to resolution.

119
00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:02,080
That sounds pedantic.

120
00:05:02,080 --> 00:05:03,080
It isn't.

121
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:06,440
Because when an organization believes tickets are the operating model, it starts optimizing

122
00:05:06,440 --> 00:05:07,960
for the wrong things.

123
00:05:07,960 --> 00:05:12,560
Faster logging, better categorization, cleaner fields, nicer dashboards.

124
00:05:12,560 --> 00:05:15,200
Meanwhile, the real failure remains untouched.

125
00:05:15,200 --> 00:05:17,480
Work still moves through side channels.

126
00:05:17,480 --> 00:05:21,200
Approvals still happen in meetings and exceptions still get granted by whoever shouts

127
00:05:21,200 --> 00:05:22,200
loudest in teams.

128
00:05:22,200 --> 00:05:23,440
A workflow is different.

129
00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:25,080
A workflow is a control system.

130
00:05:25,080 --> 00:05:27,360
It defines sequence ownership and evidence.

131
00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:30,160
It makes the path from requested to done repeatable.

132
00:05:30,160 --> 00:05:32,280
It doesn't just track the thing that happened.

133
00:05:32,280 --> 00:05:34,800
It creates the conditions for the thing to happen predictably.

134
00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,160
That's why, beyond ITSM is not marketing.

135
00:05:37,160 --> 00:05:38,160
It's a category shift.

136
00:05:38,160 --> 00:05:42,240
ITSM is the first place most enterprises meet workflow discipline because incidents

137
00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:44,280
and requests force the conversation.

138
00:05:44,280 --> 00:05:49,040
But the minute you cross into cross-domain work and HR, security, finance, facilities,

139
00:05:49,040 --> 00:05:50,760
the ticket model starts lying to you.

140
00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:52,840
Take the three classic idle shapes.

141
00:05:52,840 --> 00:05:53,840
Incidents are interruptions.

142
00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:55,960
They demand speed and coordination.

143
00:05:55,960 --> 00:05:57,280
Requests are supply chain.

144
00:05:57,280 --> 00:06:00,360
They need fulfillment, approvals and inventory like thinking.

145
00:06:00,360 --> 00:06:01,840
Changes are risk management.

146
00:06:01,840 --> 00:06:04,320
They exist to prevent you from making a bad day worse.

147
00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:07,440
Now watch what happens when you treat all three like a ticket.

148
00:06:07,440 --> 00:06:11,360
You build one intake form, one queue, one set of statuses, and then you rely on humans

149
00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:13,040
to do the orchestration in their heads.

150
00:06:13,040 --> 00:06:14,240
That's where drift starts.

151
00:06:14,240 --> 00:06:17,240
Because the moment reality gets messy, onboarding a VP,

152
00:06:17,240 --> 00:06:20,640
responding to an incident trying to buy something before quarter end,

153
00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:23,360
the workflow gets replaced by just do it.

154
00:06:23,360 --> 00:06:24,640
Approvals happen in chat.

155
00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:26,640
Access gets granted temporarily.

156
00:06:26,640 --> 00:06:28,200
Procurement bypasses checks.

157
00:06:28,200 --> 00:06:30,400
Security says, "We'll document later."

158
00:06:30,400 --> 00:06:31,920
And later never arrives.

159
00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:33,040
That's the entropy pattern.

160
00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:35,200
A shortcut under pressure becomes the real process.

161
00:06:35,200 --> 00:06:38,160
And this is where cross-domain work breaks ticket thinking completely.

162
00:06:38,160 --> 00:06:41,840
Onboarding is not an HR ticket plus an IT ticket.

163
00:06:41,840 --> 00:06:43,880
It's one workflow with dependencies.

164
00:06:43,880 --> 00:06:48,160
Higher date triggers identity, identity triggers access, access triggers device provisioning,

165
00:06:48,160 --> 00:06:51,200
device provisioning triggers security baselines, security baselines,

166
00:06:51,200 --> 00:06:53,080
trigger compliance confirmations.

167
00:06:53,080 --> 00:06:56,800
If that chain isn't enforced somewhere, you get chaos disguised as productivity,

168
00:06:56,800 --> 00:07:01,160
same with access requests, same with procurement, same with security response.

169
00:07:01,160 --> 00:07:03,720
A ticket can sit in a queue and still be open.

170
00:07:03,720 --> 00:07:05,320
That's fine for pain tracking.

171
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:07,960
But it tells you nothing about throughput bottlenecks or risk.

172
00:07:07,960 --> 00:07:10,680
You can close a ticket and still have the wrong access assigned.

173
00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:14,120
You can resolve an incident and still have the same conditions that caused it.

174
00:07:14,120 --> 00:07:18,600
You can implement a change and have zero evidence for why the blast radius was acceptable.

175
00:07:18,600 --> 00:07:20,120
So the reframe is simple.

176
00:07:20,120 --> 00:07:22,080
Ticketing is a visibility tool.

177
00:07:22,080 --> 00:07:23,560
Workflows are an execution tool.

178
00:07:23,560 --> 00:07:26,560
And the enterprise doesn't get punished for missing visibility.

179
00:07:26,560 --> 00:07:28,520
It gets punished for missing execution.

180
00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:33,440
Because execution is where risk accumulates, who approved, who changed what, what evidence exists,

181
00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:37,600
what controls were bypassed and what is now permanently true in your environment.

182
00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:39,720
Because someone needed it done.

183
00:07:39,720 --> 00:07:45,720
So when leaders say we need to get beyond ITSM, what they usually mean without having the words for it is,

184
00:07:45,720 --> 00:07:48,320
we need enterprise request fulfillment and orchestration.

185
00:07:48,320 --> 00:07:52,880
We need an operating layer that makes work deterministic even when humans are not.

186
00:07:52,880 --> 00:07:55,520
That's the platform lens executives actually fund.

187
00:07:55,520 --> 00:07:58,160
Not apps, not tickets, operating layers.

188
00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:01,920
And once you see that, the Microsoft and ServiceNow split stops being confusing.

189
00:08:01,920 --> 00:08:03,200
It becomes obvious.

190
00:08:03,200 --> 00:08:06,680
Platform not product, systems of record versus systems of action.

191
00:08:06,680 --> 00:08:08,720
Executives keep buying platforms.

192
00:08:08,720 --> 00:08:13,000
But most of what gets implemented is still treated like a product, a portal, a ticket form,

193
00:08:13,000 --> 00:08:16,280
a reporting dashboard, an AI add-on, a new license tier.

194
00:08:16,280 --> 00:08:19,880
That's how you end up with expensive tooling and the same operational outcomes.

195
00:08:19,880 --> 00:08:22,240
The useful lens is older and much less exciting.

196
00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:24,640
System of record versus system of action.

197
00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:27,040
A system of record is where truth lives.

198
00:08:27,040 --> 00:08:30,760
It's authoritative data, governed fields, auditability and retention.

199
00:08:30,760 --> 00:08:33,720
It's built to be correct, durable and defensible.

200
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:35,960
The price of that durability is friction.

201
00:08:35,960 --> 00:08:39,080
Approvals, controls and slower change velocity.

202
00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:41,600
ERP is the obvious example, so is your HRS.

203
00:08:41,600 --> 00:08:45,240
And yes, ServiceNow can be a system of record for certain operational data too.

204
00:08:45,240 --> 00:08:47,160
A system of action is where work moves.

205
00:08:47,160 --> 00:08:52,720
It roots tasks, enforces sequencing, captures decisions and produces outcomes with evidence.

206
00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:54,080
It's designed for throughput.

207
00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:57,840
It has to handle humans, exceptions and time pressure without turning into folklore.

208
00:08:57,840 --> 00:09:01,920
Most organizations try to force their systems of record to behave like systems of action.

209
00:09:01,920 --> 00:09:05,520
They attach a workflow to an ERP transaction and call it orchestration.

210
00:09:05,520 --> 00:09:10,240
Or they treat Microsoft 365 artifacts, emails, planet asks, teams, messages as if they are

211
00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:11,560
a process state.

212
00:09:11,560 --> 00:09:13,080
That mistake doesn't show up in a demo.

213
00:09:13,080 --> 00:09:15,960
It shows up when the CFO asks who approved this.

214
00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:18,280
And the answer is it was in a chat thread.

215
00:09:18,280 --> 00:09:21,760
Or when security asks who authorized that privilege elevation.

216
00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:23,960
And the answer is we agreed in the war room.

217
00:09:23,960 --> 00:09:25,720
Documents aren't state chat isn't governance.

218
00:09:25,720 --> 00:09:27,800
A mailbox is not an audit trail.

219
00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:30,600
And here's the part that makes architects uncomfortable.

220
00:09:30,600 --> 00:09:33,720
A system of action must behave like a state machine.

221
00:09:33,720 --> 00:09:34,720
That's not a metaphor.

222
00:09:34,720 --> 00:09:35,720
It's a requirement.

223
00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:39,480
There has to be an authoritative definition of where this work is.

224
00:09:39,480 --> 00:09:40,840
What happens next?

225
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:42,200
Who can move it?

226
00:09:42,200 --> 00:09:44,920
And what evidence is required to move it?

227
00:09:44,920 --> 00:09:49,120
If the work can progress by someone typing approved into teams, you do not have a state

228
00:09:49,120 --> 00:09:50,120
machine.

229
00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:51,400
You have conditional chaos.

230
00:09:51,400 --> 00:09:55,040
This is why we have M365 doesn't solve execution.

231
00:09:55,040 --> 00:09:58,760
Microsoft is exceptional at capturing intent and providing collaboration surfaces.

232
00:09:58,760 --> 00:10:02,760
It is not designed to be the authoritative engine that enforces enterprise sequence,

233
00:10:02,760 --> 00:10:04,560
policy and evidence across domains.

234
00:10:04,560 --> 00:10:07,680
It will happily host the conversation where the bypass decision gets made.

235
00:10:07,680 --> 00:10:09,240
It will not stop you from doing it.

236
00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:12,160
And this is why we have an ERP doesn't solve execution.

237
00:10:12,160 --> 00:10:16,560
ERP will preserve the transaction after the fact it won't coordinate the human chain

238
00:10:16,560 --> 00:10:20,640
of approvals, exception handling and downstream tasks that make the transaction legitimate

239
00:10:20,640 --> 00:10:21,640
in the first place.

240
00:10:21,640 --> 00:10:23,640
So enterprises need both layers.

241
00:10:23,640 --> 00:10:25,520
System of record underneath.

242
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:27,960
Authoritative data, integrity compliance.

243
00:10:27,960 --> 00:10:32,160
System of action above it, orchestration, rooting, enforcement, audit, surface for execution.

244
00:10:32,160 --> 00:10:34,320
The mistake is believing one replaces the other.

245
00:10:34,320 --> 00:10:38,000
It's also why ServiceNow's gravity keeps expanding beyond ITSM.

246
00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:39,960
It's not because IT tickets are exciting.

247
00:10:39,960 --> 00:10:43,280
It's because the enterprise keeps discovering the same gap.

248
00:10:43,280 --> 00:10:48,160
There is no shared execution layer between people, set a thing and systems change the thing.

249
00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:52,640
ServiceNow fits that gap because it can hold state across domains, tie tasks and approvals

250
00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:55,520
together in force policy gates and produce evidence.

251
00:10:55,520 --> 00:10:59,600
The turns we should into, we did, with a trail you can actually defend.

252
00:10:59,600 --> 00:11:03,240
And Microsoft fits the other half because it owns where humans actually live.

253
00:11:03,240 --> 00:11:08,400
Autlook, SharePoint, Word, Meetings, Calls, that's where intent shows up, that's where decisions

254
00:11:08,400 --> 00:11:11,280
get discussed, that's where people demand status.

255
00:11:11,280 --> 00:11:15,280
So the correct architecture isn't ServiceNow versus Microsoft.

256
00:11:15,280 --> 00:11:17,920
It's a split-brain model by design.

257
00:11:17,920 --> 00:11:19,440
Microsoft is the engagement plane.

258
00:11:19,440 --> 00:11:22,760
Capture intent, collaboration, communication, context.

259
00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:25,000
ServiceNow is the execution plane.

260
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:27,440
Authoritative state, routing, approvals, evidence.

261
00:11:27,440 --> 00:11:31,040
Once you accept that, the rest of the episode stops sounding like theory.

262
00:11:31,040 --> 00:11:32,360
It becomes an operating pattern.

263
00:11:32,360 --> 00:11:37,680
Now the only question worth asking is what happens when those two planes get stitched together correctly,

264
00:11:37,680 --> 00:11:40,760
without letting governance evaporate?

265
00:11:40,760 --> 00:11:44,200
One sentence each, the Microsoft ServiceNow.

266
00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:48,920
PowerSplit, ServiceNow in one sentence, it's the enterprise execution engine, the place

267
00:11:48,920 --> 00:11:52,800
where work becomes a govern state machine, not a conversation.

268
00:11:52,800 --> 00:11:56,840
Microsoft in one sentence, it's the productivity and intelligence surface.

269
00:11:56,840 --> 00:12:00,440
The place where humans generate intent, context and pressure, that's the split and it's

270
00:12:00,440 --> 00:12:04,520
not philosophical, it's architectural jurisdiction.

271
00:12:04,520 --> 00:12:09,000
Most organizations keep trying to crown one platform as the single pane of glass.

272
00:12:09,000 --> 00:12:10,400
That instinct is understandable.

273
00:12:10,400 --> 00:12:14,080
It's also how you end up with a pane of glass full of cracks, because the problem isn't

274
00:12:14,080 --> 00:12:15,080
visibility.

275
00:12:15,080 --> 00:12:17,200
The problem is ownership of state.

276
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:21,760
Microsoft owns human behavior, teams chats, outlook threads, meetings, documents, that's

277
00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:23,320
where intent shows up.

278
00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:27,560
ServiceNow owns operational truth, the current state, the next owner, the approvals, the gates

279
00:12:27,560 --> 00:12:28,640
and the evidence.

280
00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:30,640
That's execution.

281
00:12:30,640 --> 00:12:34,080
So the partnership story becomes obvious when you strip away the press releases.

282
00:12:34,080 --> 00:12:35,600
The goal isn't to merge products.

283
00:12:35,600 --> 00:12:39,200
The goal is to reduce context switching without collapsing governance.

284
00:12:39,200 --> 00:12:42,080
Teams is where the request starts because that's where people are.

285
00:12:42,080 --> 00:12:46,480
ServiceNow is where the request stays coherent because that's where process lives.

286
00:12:46,480 --> 00:12:48,440
Microsoft gives you the easiest place to ask.

287
00:12:48,440 --> 00:12:51,960
ServiceNow gives you the hardest thing to build, an operating layer that keeps working

288
00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:53,520
after the chat scrolls away.

289
00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:55,120
And here's the uncomfortable truth.

290
00:12:55,120 --> 00:12:58,800
You can't lose beat point solutions because entropy scales faster than your org chart.

291
00:12:58,800 --> 00:13:02,880
Every time a team solves their problem with a one off board, a custom form, a flow or a

292
00:13:02,880 --> 00:13:05,320
mailbox rule, they create a local optimum.

293
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:06,600
Then another team does the same.

294
00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:10,040
You end up with 50 local optima and one global mess.

295
00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:12,560
Central policy doesn't fail because people are malicious.

296
00:13:12,560 --> 00:13:15,160
It fails because exceptions accumulate.

297
00:13:15,160 --> 00:13:17,560
This is why the Microsoft captures intent.

298
00:13:17,560 --> 00:13:19,680
ServiceNow executes intent line matters.

299
00:13:19,680 --> 00:13:20,680
It's not a slogan.

300
00:13:20,680 --> 00:13:22,000
It's an enforcement boundary.

301
00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:27,760
Intent means take human language, human context and human ambiguity and turn it into something

302
00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:29,520
structured enough to act on.

303
00:13:29,520 --> 00:13:34,320
That's what co-pilot is good at inside M365, summarizing extracting tasks, identifying relevant

304
00:13:34,320 --> 00:13:36,960
files, pulling context from meetings and messages.

305
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:41,840
It helps humans articulate executing intent means take that structured request and push it

306
00:13:41,840 --> 00:13:49,600
through deterministic gates, approvals, routing, SLA timers, risk decisions and auditable outcomes.

307
00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:52,880
That's what ServiceNow is built to do, own the workflow state, the policy surface and the

308
00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:53,880
evidence trail.

309
00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:55,960
In other words, Microsoft is your front door.

310
00:13:55,960 --> 00:13:57,400
ServiceNow is the factory floor.

311
00:13:57,400 --> 00:14:02,560
You don't run a factory by letting every employee rewrite the assembly line in chat.

312
00:14:02,560 --> 00:14:05,880
Now the integration implication is where most teams get themselves into trouble.

313
00:14:05,880 --> 00:14:09,040
They hear integrated experience and assume one tool.

314
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:12,120
What they should hear is one experience, two authorities.

315
00:14:12,120 --> 00:14:16,840
ServiceServiceNow records in teams, reduced context switching, but keep workflow state authoritative

316
00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:20,320
in ServiceNow or your back to screenshots and social approvals.

317
00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:24,000
And yes, AI can answer questions, that's useful, but answers aren't outcomes.

318
00:14:24,000 --> 00:14:25,960
AI without workflows creates noise.

319
00:14:25,960 --> 00:14:28,120
AI inside workflows creates outcomes.

320
00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:32,000
So the power play here isn't that Microsoft and ServiceNow both have assistance.

321
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,400
The power play is that they're competing for the operating layer and the only sustainable

322
00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:39,680
design is to keep engagement and execution separate, then stitch them together with explicit

323
00:14:39,680 --> 00:14:41,000
controls.

324
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:44,600
Because if you let the engagement layer right directly into execution without guardrails,

325
00:14:44,600 --> 00:14:45,760
you don't get automation.

326
00:14:45,760 --> 00:14:52,360
You get accelerated entropy, the operating layer pattern, events, workflows, decisions,

327
00:14:52,360 --> 00:14:53,360
outcomes.

328
00:14:53,360 --> 00:14:57,680
If you want a simple model that explains why we have all the tools still produces chaos,

329
00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:02,040
it's this chain, events, workflows, decisions, outcomes.

330
00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:06,280
Most enterprises are drowning in events, improvising workflows, outsourcing decisions to side

331
00:15:06,280 --> 00:15:11,440
channels, and then acting surprised when outcomes are inconsistent, the operating layer exists

332
00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:14,680
to make that chain deterministic start with events.

333
00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:18,200
An event is anything that says something changed and work should happen.

334
00:15:18,200 --> 00:15:22,640
A new higher date in the HR system, a security alert from Defender, a manager asking for budget

335
00:15:22,640 --> 00:15:27,160
approval in Teams, a CI pipeline failing, an in-tune device going non-compliant, even a

336
00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:31,680
human sentence like, "Can you get me access by Friday?" is an event, just unstructured.

337
00:15:31,680 --> 00:15:33,240
The problem isn't that events are missing.

338
00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:36,160
The problem is that events don't map cleanly to execution.

339
00:15:36,160 --> 00:15:40,520
They land in inboxes, chats and dashboards, and then humans translate them into work by

340
00:15:40,520 --> 00:15:41,520
hand.

341
00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:46,360
This relation is where meaning gets lost, urgency gets distorted, and risk gets ignored.

342
00:15:46,360 --> 00:15:48,120
It's also where you get the classic failure.

343
00:15:48,120 --> 00:15:51,360
The event is seen, discussed, and then nobody owns the next step.

344
00:15:51,360 --> 00:15:54,200
So the operating layer does something boring and essential.

345
00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:56,280
It converts events into workflows.

346
00:15:56,280 --> 00:15:57,920
A workflow is not a diagram.

347
00:15:57,920 --> 00:16:02,800
It's an executable state machine, steps, dependencies, ownership, time boundaries, and evidence

348
00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:03,800
requirements.

349
00:16:03,800 --> 00:16:07,840
It turns we should into the system will not proceed until.

350
00:16:07,840 --> 00:16:10,240
This is where the enterprise stops lying to itself.

351
00:16:10,240 --> 00:16:13,360
Because the system can either enforce sequence or it can't.

352
00:16:13,360 --> 00:16:17,720
And if it can't, your process is just people with good intentions and bad memory.

353
00:16:17,720 --> 00:16:19,560
Workflows are also where entropy hides.

354
00:16:19,560 --> 00:16:22,120
Approvals are the obvious example, not because approvals are virtuous.

355
00:16:22,120 --> 00:16:23,120
They're not.

356
00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:25,640
They're expensive, but approvals are where policy meets pressure.

357
00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:28,520
If approvals happen in the workflow, you get traceability.

358
00:16:28,520 --> 00:16:31,320
If approvals happen in chat, you get plausible deniability.

359
00:16:31,320 --> 00:16:34,040
Next, decisions.

360
00:16:34,040 --> 00:16:36,120
Decisions are not the same as workflow steps.

361
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,320
A workflow step is, request manager approval.

362
00:16:39,320 --> 00:16:45,080
A decision is, is this request eligible under policy and low risk enough to approve?

363
00:16:45,080 --> 00:16:49,560
Enterprises keep trying to remove decisions from the system because decisions create friction.

364
00:16:49,560 --> 00:16:52,000
Then they wonder why risk explodes.

365
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:53,560
Decisions are where governance lives.

366
00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:58,360
Sagaiation of duties, entitlement boundaries, finance thresholds, change risk scoring, exception

367
00:16:58,360 --> 00:17:00,560
handling, in practical terms.

368
00:17:00,560 --> 00:17:05,080
It's the difference between deterministic security and probabilistic security.

369
00:17:05,080 --> 00:17:09,160
Socialistic security says, if these conditions are true, the system allows the action and

370
00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:10,800
we can prove it later.

371
00:17:10,800 --> 00:17:14,920
Probabilistic security says, someone said it was fine in a meeting and hopefully that person

372
00:17:14,920 --> 00:17:16,920
still works here during the audit.

373
00:17:16,920 --> 00:17:18,240
That distinction matters.

374
00:17:18,240 --> 00:17:21,000
And this is where identity becomes the enforcement boundary.

375
00:17:21,000 --> 00:17:22,560
Entra ID doesn't just authenticate.

376
00:17:22,560 --> 00:17:26,800
It defines who the actor is, what roles they have, what conditional access gates apply,

377
00:17:26,800 --> 00:17:30,680
and when you use it correctly, what the blast radius of a bad decision can be.

378
00:17:30,680 --> 00:17:34,520
When you don't anchor decisions to identity, you end up anchoring them to social authority.

379
00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:36,800
That means the loudest person wins.

380
00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:39,800
Finally, outcomes.

381
00:17:39,800 --> 00:17:41,960
Outcomes aren't ticket closed.

382
00:17:41,960 --> 00:17:44,000
Outcomes are fulfillment completed.

383
00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:47,840
Access provisioned with evidence, containment executed with approval trail, procurement

384
00:17:47,840 --> 00:17:50,120
posted with policy intact.

385
00:17:50,120 --> 00:17:52,880
Change deployed with roll back path documented.

386
00:17:52,880 --> 00:17:57,440
Outcomes are measurable cycle time, measurable compliance, and measurable throughput.

387
00:17:57,440 --> 00:17:59,480
Here's the hard reality.

388
00:17:59,480 --> 00:18:01,160
Enterprises don't fail at planning.

389
00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:02,800
They fail at execution throughput.

390
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:06,200
They fail because work spends its life in the gaps.

391
00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:09,800
Between systems, between teams, between we agreed and we did.

392
00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:14,280
The operating layer closes those gaps by keeping state authoritative and transitions controlled.

393
00:18:14,280 --> 00:18:16,680
Now AI shows up and tries to be helpful.

394
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:18,120
Copilot can summarize events.

395
00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:19,680
It can even propose next steps.

396
00:18:19,680 --> 00:18:23,080
Now assist can pull service, now context, and suggest actions.

397
00:18:23,080 --> 00:18:24,320
Useful.

398
00:18:24,320 --> 00:18:28,200
But the operating layer has one law you don't get to negotiate.

399
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:30,200
Read can be fast and forgiving.

400
00:18:30,200 --> 00:18:31,840
Right must be governed.

401
00:18:31,840 --> 00:18:36,440
So AI belongs at the event and decision edges interpreting intent, proposing actions,

402
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:37,440
ranking urgency.

403
00:18:37,440 --> 00:18:40,560
But outcomes still require workflows, approvals, and audit trails.

404
00:18:40,560 --> 00:18:44,760
Otherwise you've automated the weakest part of the system, human improvisation.

405
00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:47,560
And that's how you get what everyone is quietly building right now.

406
00:18:47,560 --> 00:18:48,560
Accelerated entropy.

407
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:54,240
Scenario one, employee onboarding, HR plus IT plus security without email chains.

408
00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:58,760
Onboarding is the cleanest way to expose enterprise reality because it looks simple until you try

409
00:18:58,760 --> 00:19:00,400
to execute it at scale.

410
00:19:00,400 --> 00:19:05,200
New hire equals laptop, accounts, access, maybe a badge, maybe training, maybe a regulated

411
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:09,520
role that needs extra approvals, everyone nods, everyone agrees it should be repeatable.

412
00:19:09,520 --> 00:19:10,920
Then it hits the org chart.

413
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:12,680
Work starts where humans live.

414
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:14,080
Outlook and teams.

415
00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:17,320
A hiring manager forwards an offer email, HR posts a note.

416
00:19:17,320 --> 00:19:20,280
Someone drops, start date is Monday, into a chat.

417
00:19:20,280 --> 00:19:22,320
Intent exists loudly in human language.

418
00:19:22,320 --> 00:19:23,320
It is not yet work.

419
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:25,200
It's just pressure with a calendar attached.

420
00:19:25,200 --> 00:19:30,520
In a 50,000 person global enterprise, the first failure mode shows up immediately.

421
00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:32,520
There is no single owner of the end to end state.

422
00:19:32,520 --> 00:19:37,520
HR owns the employee record, IT owns devices and accounts, security owns access boundaries,

423
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:41,920
facilities owns physical access, finance owns cost centers, legal might care.

424
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:43,560
Compliance definitely cares.

425
00:19:43,560 --> 00:19:45,560
So what actually happens is predictable.

426
00:19:45,560 --> 00:19:48,320
People create a chain of messages and call it a process.

427
00:19:48,320 --> 00:19:50,120
One email thread becomes the system.

428
00:19:50,120 --> 00:19:51,960
A team's chat becomes the hand off.

429
00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:54,320
A spreadsheet becomes the tracker.

430
00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:58,800
And the only reason it works at all is because a few humans remember the tribal sequence.

431
00:19:58,800 --> 00:19:59,800
Until they don't.

432
00:19:59,800 --> 00:20:03,960
This is where the Microsoft and ServiceNow split becomes useful instead of political.

433
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:07,560
Microsoft is where the request is born because that's where the manager already is.

434
00:20:07,560 --> 00:20:11,760
And co-pilot can help at that exact moment in a way that's actually valuable.

435
00:20:11,760 --> 00:20:13,360
Extract what matters.

436
00:20:13,360 --> 00:20:18,600
Start date, location, role, manager, department, cost center, whether the person is internal,

437
00:20:18,600 --> 00:20:21,840
contractor or vendor, and whether they're joining a regulated function.

438
00:20:21,840 --> 00:20:25,680
It's a data capture, normalization, turning a messy message into structured facts, but capturing

439
00:20:25,680 --> 00:20:26,880
intent isn't the win.

440
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,800
The win is what happens after that when the workflow has to survive the weekend.

441
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:32,880
ServiceNow has to own the authoritative state.

442
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:36,200
The onboarding case, its tasks, its dependencies and its gates.

443
00:20:36,200 --> 00:20:38,360
HR triggers the joiner event.

444
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:40,120
ServiceNow generates the work.

445
00:20:40,120 --> 00:20:44,520
Device requests, identity provisioning, mailbox creation, baseline access, application

446
00:20:44,520 --> 00:20:48,760
entitlements, security training, and whatever region-specific requirements exist.

447
00:20:48,760 --> 00:20:51,680
And every task has an owner, not a someone.

448
00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:57,160
An assignment group, a queue, an SLA and escalation rules that don't rely on a helpful person noticing

449
00:20:57,160 --> 00:20:58,160
the message.

450
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:00,160
Here's what most people miss.

451
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:01,560
Identity is not a task.

452
00:21:01,560 --> 00:21:03,240
Identity is the enforcement boundary.

453
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:08,040
In onboarding, enter ID is where the organization decides what the new hire is allowed to become.

454
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:12,200
It's the difference between they should have access to these apps and they do.

455
00:21:12,200 --> 00:21:15,920
That means entitlements and group membership can't be granted through sidechats.

456
00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:18,000
They have to be routed, approved, and auditable.

457
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:19,360
So the right pattern is boring.

458
00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:20,960
The manager asks in teams.

459
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:22,640
The workflow runs in ServiceNow.

460
00:21:22,640 --> 00:21:24,360
Identity changes happen under control.

461
00:21:24,360 --> 00:21:28,760
If the organization needs privileged access, the workflow has to force explicit approvals

462
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:29,760
and time boundaries.

463
00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:31,400
No permanent temporary access.

464
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:32,400
No informal.

465
00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:33,400
I'll remove it later.

466
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:36,360
The system either expires access automatically, or it doesn't.

467
00:21:36,360 --> 00:21:38,240
And if it doesn't, you didn't onboard someone.

468
00:21:38,240 --> 00:21:39,920
You created future incident fuel.

469
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:43,640
Now let's talk about where it breaks today because this is where executives recognize

470
00:21:43,640 --> 00:21:44,640
themselves.

471
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:47,960
First approvals happen in email or chat because it feels faster.

472
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:50,240
That means the approval isn't linked to the action.

473
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:54,320
Having an audit, you can't prove who approved what only that people talked about it.

474
00:21:54,320 --> 00:21:56,440
Second, exceptions become the default.

475
00:21:56,440 --> 00:21:57,440
Just give them access.

476
00:21:57,440 --> 00:21:58,440
They start tomorrow.

477
00:21:58,440 --> 00:21:59,800
Then tomorrow becomes six months.

478
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:03,400
Then the person changes roles and keeps the old access because nobody owns deprovisioning

479
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:04,800
across domains.

480
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:05,800
Third visibility is fake.

481
00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:09,280
HR says the hire is complete because the HR tasks are complete.

482
00:22:09,280 --> 00:22:11,280
IT says the laptop shipped.

483
00:22:11,280 --> 00:22:12,680
Security says training is assigned.

484
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:14,720
The new hire says they can't do their job.

485
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:16,240
Every system is locally correct.

486
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:17,280
And to end, it's a failure.

487
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:19,320
So what does good look like in this scenario?

488
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:23,600
It looks like one request thread in teams that never pretends to be the authoritative state.

489
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:24,600
It's just the interface.

490
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:27,800
The same conversation can surface a service now card.

491
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,640
On-boarding case created, current status, blockers, and next steps.

492
00:22:31,640 --> 00:22:33,880
The manager can ask, "What's holding this up?"

493
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:37,320
And get an answer that's derived from workflow state, not someone's memory.

494
00:22:37,320 --> 00:22:39,600
It also means controlled exception handling.

495
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:43,680
If someone needs early access, the workflow captures it as an exception with a reason,

496
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,840
an approver, a time limit, and a log change.

497
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:47,840
It's hard for bidden.

498
00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:49,560
They're recorded and constrained.

499
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:50,720
That's entropy management.

500
00:22:50,720 --> 00:22:54,120
And the real payoff is off-boarding, even though nobody wants to talk about it during

501
00:22:54,120 --> 00:22:55,120
onboarding.

502
00:22:55,120 --> 00:22:58,600
If you build onboarding as a governed state machine, you can build off-boarding as the

503
00:22:58,600 --> 00:23:00,920
inverse workflow with the same discipline.

504
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:05,640
That's how you stop often access from becoming a security incident with a press release

505
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:06,640
attached.

506
00:23:06,640 --> 00:23:09,320
On-boarding is the happy path, but it's still a stress test.

507
00:23:09,320 --> 00:23:13,400
It forces you to decide where intent lives, where execution lives, and whether identity

508
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,800
is controlled by policy or by social urgency.

509
00:23:16,800 --> 00:23:19,200
Next, the stress test becomes explicit.

510
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:23,640
Security incident response where everyone wants speed and governance is always later.

511
00:23:23,640 --> 00:23:29,280
Scenario 2 Security incident response, collaboration in teams, execution in workflows.

512
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:33,280
Security incident response is where every nice process dies, because under pressure people

513
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:34,280
don't follow policy.

514
00:23:34,280 --> 00:23:35,280
They follow urgency.

515
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:37,000
They spin up a team's war room.

516
00:23:37,000 --> 00:23:41,880
Tag everyone they can think of and start trading theories, screenshots, and half-finished conclusions.

517
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:43,440
And that part is fine.

518
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:44,680
Collaboration is supposed to be messy.

519
00:23:44,680 --> 00:23:48,000
The failure happens when the messy part becomes the control system.

520
00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,560
In a regulated enterprise, the first question isn't, can we fix it?

521
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:55,040
It's who is allowed to do what and who approved it?

522
00:23:55,040 --> 00:24:00,120
Containment actions change reality, disabling accounts, revoking sessions, isolating devices,

523
00:24:00,120 --> 00:24:04,200
blocking IPs, rotating secrets, pulling logs, escalating privileges.

524
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:05,520
Those aren't chat decisions.

525
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:07,800
Those are governed operations with blast radius.

526
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:09,840
So here's the pattern that actually works.

527
00:24:09,840 --> 00:24:14,040
The alert surfaces in Microsoft, but the execution runs in service now.

528
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:18,480
The alert might come from Defender, Sentinel, a SOC tool or a third party platform.

529
00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:19,480
Where does it land?

530
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:20,480
Teams.

531
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:21,480
Because that's where humans are.

532
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:23,000
And that's where humans coordinate.

533
00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,840
You want the incident channel, the pinned context, the running timeline, the stakeholders,

534
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,600
the communications lead, the who's on point assignments.

535
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,720
Microsoft is the engagement plane doing exactly what it's built to do.

536
00:24:32,720 --> 00:24:36,040
But the moment you start taking action, the system needs an execution plane.

537
00:24:36,040 --> 00:24:37,040
Service.

538
00:24:37,040 --> 00:24:41,680
Now owns the Security incident record, the workflow state, the tasking, the evidence capture,

539
00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:44,000
and the approvals that you can defend later.

540
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,440
The triage isn't just, we think it's fishing.

541
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:50,560
It's classification, severity, assignment, SLA triggers, and a controlled flow that can

542
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:51,960
survive shift changes.

543
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:54,960
Because the incident doesn't care that the night team is different people.

544
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:57,760
This is where the Microsoft captures intent.

545
00:24:57,760 --> 00:25:01,360
Service now executes intent, split becomes operational.

546
00:25:01,360 --> 00:25:04,240
In Teams, someone says, we need to disable this account now.

547
00:25:04,240 --> 00:25:06,320
It's actively exfiltrating.

548
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:07,680
That sentence is intent.

549
00:25:07,680 --> 00:25:09,320
It's also a liability.

550
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,600
In a mature model, that intent becomes an action request, a workflow step in service

551
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:20,000
now that says disable account X with an approver, a reason, a timestamp, and a recorded outcome.

552
00:25:20,000 --> 00:25:24,480
If the organization uses privileged identity management, the workflow drives that elevation

553
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:25,920
through controlled gates.

554
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:30,760
If it doesn't, the workflow at least forces a documented approval and ties it to the change.

555
00:25:30,760 --> 00:25:35,160
Because the ugly truth is this, the fastest way to create security debt is to let containment

556
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:37,000
happen through informal authority.

557
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:38,520
The other failure mode is evidence.

558
00:25:38,520 --> 00:25:41,520
In a security incident, evidence isn't nice to have.

559
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:44,840
It's the difference between a controllable incident and an audit nightmare.

560
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:46,520
Teams conversations don't give you evidence.

561
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:48,000
They give you a transcript.

562
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:49,920
Service now can force evidence.

563
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:56,200
Log links, indicators, containment actions, impacted assets, who approved what was changed

564
00:25:56,200 --> 00:25:57,400
and when.

565
00:25:57,400 --> 00:25:59,680
Nobody likes documentation in the middle of a fire.

566
00:25:59,680 --> 00:26:02,880
That's why it has to be baked into the workflow, not left to human discipline.

567
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:06,720
Now layer in AI because this is where everyone gets confused and starts building the wrong

568
00:26:06,720 --> 00:26:07,720
thing.

569
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,320
Copilot is great at summarizing teams, threats, pulling key decisions, finding the file

570
00:26:11,320 --> 00:26:16,000
that contains the indicator list and generating a draft comms update.

571
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:19,000
That's real value because it reduces cognitive load.

572
00:26:19,000 --> 00:26:23,080
But Copilot doesn't get to execute containment just because it can write a confident paragraph.

573
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:25,680
Now assist is great at the service now side.

574
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:30,160
Summarizing case history, suggesting related incidents, pulling knowledge articles, proposing

575
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:34,880
next actions based on prior patterns and helping agents write resolution notes.

576
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:38,120
That's useful because it speeds decisions inside the execution plane.

577
00:26:38,120 --> 00:26:42,480
And here's the law, AI can propose workflows decide read operations can be fast, right

578
00:26:42,480 --> 00:26:43,880
operations must be governed.

579
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:49,040
So the correct flow is AI accelerates triage and decision making, but execution remains

580
00:26:49,040 --> 00:26:50,040
deterministic.

581
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:55,200
If you let an AI agent just take care of it, you've replaced human improvisation with probabilistic

582
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:57,040
improvisation at machine speed.

583
00:26:57,040 --> 00:26:58,040
That's not automation.

584
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:02,200
That's a faster incident in the composite enterprise 50k employees, multiple regions,

585
00:27:02,200 --> 00:27:03,200
heavy regulation.

586
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:05,520
This also becomes a communications problem.

587
00:27:05,520 --> 00:27:10,440
The war room needs an external narrative leadership updates, customer comms, legal review and

588
00:27:10,440 --> 00:27:11,920
operational timelines.

589
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:15,920
Teams is still the best place to coordinate that, but service now needs to remain the authoritative

590
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,040
timeline for what was actually done.

591
00:27:18,040 --> 00:27:22,600
Otherwise the post-incident review becomes a debate about whose memory is correct.

592
00:27:22,600 --> 00:27:27,200
So good in this scenario looks like teams for coordination and shared awareness.

593
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:30,920
Service now for triage assignment approvals, evidence and outcome tracking identity as

594
00:27:30,920 --> 00:27:33,360
the enforcement boundary for privileged actions.

595
00:27:33,360 --> 00:27:38,160
AI as an accelerant inside the guardrails, not a replacement for them and the payoff is

596
00:27:38,160 --> 00:27:39,160
measurable.

597
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,600
Lower decision latency, fewer manual handoffs, cleaner audit trails and fewer temporary access

598
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:46,280
grants that survive into the next quarter.

599
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:47,120
Reflection pause.

600
00:27:47,120 --> 00:27:50,400
If you're listening to this and thinking, yes, this sounds familiar, that's the point.

601
00:27:50,400 --> 00:27:51,720
None of this is hypothetical.

602
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:54,320
This is how your organization already works just without an owner.

603
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:58,560
Now take that same discipline and move it out of the SOC and into finance where pressure

604
00:27:58,560 --> 00:28:01,800
comes from quarter end instead of attackers.

605
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:06,480
In our three finance approvals, procure to pay without policy erosion.

606
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,240
Finance is where people finally admit they don't want better collaboration.

607
00:28:10,240 --> 00:28:13,560
They want enforceable policy because the failure mode isn't that nobody can request

608
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:14,560
spend.

609
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:18,440
The failure mode is that spend gets approved in the least defensible place possible.

610
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:22,800
An email thread, a team's message or a hallway conversation that later becomes we all

611
00:28:22,800 --> 00:28:23,800
agreed.

612
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,600
Procure to pay is basically the same pattern as onboarding and security response just

613
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:28,600
with different nouns.

614
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:31,600
The work starts in Microsoft because that's where the pressure lives.

615
00:28:31,600 --> 00:28:34,920
Moving forwards a vendor quote, someone tags a finance lead in teams.

616
00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:36,400
Can we get this approved today?

617
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:37,400
Quarter end.

618
00:28:37,400 --> 00:28:39,480
Someone drops a spreadsheet link and asks for a thumbs up.

619
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:40,480
That's intent.

620
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:44,040
And it's also the beginning of policy erosion because finance policy doesn't fail through

621
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:45,040
malice.

622
00:28:45,040 --> 00:28:46,040
It fails through impatience.

623
00:28:46,040 --> 00:28:47,640
Approvals get rushed.

624
00:28:47,640 --> 00:28:49,520
Thresholds get ignored.

625
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,960
Segregation of duties becomes, can you just approve it for me?

626
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:56,760
And once the organization proves it can bypass controls when it's inconvenient, it will

627
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:57,760
keep doing it.

628
00:28:57,760 --> 00:28:58,760
That's not culture.

629
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:00,120
That's system behavior.

630
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:04,320
So in the composite enterprise, 50K employees regulated industry, the operating layer has

631
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:05,840
to be explicit.

632
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:09,600
Microsoft captures the request and the context, but service now enforces the gates that

633
00:29:09,600 --> 00:29:11,520
make the request legitimate.

634
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:13,440
The way it usually breaks is almost boring.

635
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:14,840
A request lands in teams.

636
00:29:14,840 --> 00:29:16,160
The approver is on mobile.

637
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:19,760
They reply approved because it's faster than opening the portal.

638
00:29:19,760 --> 00:29:23,840
Someone screenshots that message and attaches it to something maybe.

639
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:26,520
Then procurement moves forward because we have approval.

640
00:29:26,520 --> 00:29:31,520
The ERP eventually records the transaction because that's what ERPs do, but the ERP doesn't

641
00:29:31,520 --> 00:29:33,080
know whether the approval met policy.

642
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,080
It just knows the transaction exists.

643
00:29:35,080 --> 00:29:39,320
And when audit time arrives, the organization tries to reconstruct governance from scattered

644
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:40,320
artifacts.

645
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,720
An email, a team's thread, a PDF, a memory.

646
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:43,880
That's not an audit trail.

647
00:29:43,880 --> 00:29:45,120
That's archaeology.

648
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:49,280
So what does good look like without turning finance into a bureaucratic museum exhibit?

649
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:51,640
Good looks like letting teams stay the front door.

650
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:53,960
Let the requests start where people already work.

651
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:58,520
It co-pilot help translate the messy human ask into structured fields.

652
00:29:58,520 --> 00:30:02,920
Vendor, amount, cost center, description, urgency, whether it's capex or opax and which

653
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:03,920
policy applies.

654
00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:05,520
That's intent capture.

655
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:10,720
But the moment the request becomes real money, execution moves to a workflow state machine.

656
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,840
Service now owns the approval workflow because it can enforce sequence, thresholds and separation

657
00:30:14,840 --> 00:30:15,840
of duties.

658
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:17,240
It can root automatically.

659
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:21,160
Manager approval under one threshold, finance approval under another, security review

660
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:25,920
if it touches a risky vendor category procurement review if a preferred vendor exists, legal

661
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:27,920
review if contract terms trigger it.

662
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:29,120
The point isn't complexity.

663
00:30:29,120 --> 00:30:32,400
The point is enforceable branching with an auditable Y.

664
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:34,720
And the ERP stays exactly where it belongs.

665
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:35,800
The system of record.

666
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:37,160
It posts the purchase order.

667
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:38,160
It pays the invoice.

668
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:39,800
It preserves the financial truth.

669
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:42,240
Service now sits above it as the system of action.

670
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:46,120
It orchestrates the human chain that makes the transaction acceptable, then hands the result

671
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:48,400
to the ERP with evidence attached.

672
00:30:48,400 --> 00:30:52,120
This is also where executives finally see the cost of quick exceptions.

673
00:30:52,120 --> 00:30:55,160
Every exception to approval policy is an entropy generator.

674
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:56,160
It feels like speed.

675
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:57,960
It actually creates ambiguity.

676
00:30:57,960 --> 00:31:01,120
And ambiguity is what auditors charge for, not emotionally.

677
00:31:01,120 --> 00:31:05,200
Financially, in time, remediation and the constant tax of controls that nobody trusts.

678
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,960
So the real value proposition in finance isn't faster approvals as a vanity metric.

679
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:12,040
It's consistent enforcement under pressure.

680
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:15,920
Because quarter end is basically a recurring incident except itself inflicted and everyone

681
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:16,920
pretends it's normal.

682
00:31:16,920 --> 00:31:18,600
Now the integration pattern matters.

683
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:23,320
If all you do is surface finance requests inside teams as read-only cards you reduce context

684
00:31:23,320 --> 00:31:26,240
switching but you haven't stopped bypass behavior.

685
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,360
People still approve in chat because it's convenient.

686
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:29,640
Retrieval doesn't fix execution.

687
00:31:29,640 --> 00:31:32,920
So the operating layer has to support actual actions under control.

688
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:36,560
Approvals can approve from within teams, but the approval must be written into the service

689
00:31:36,560 --> 00:31:40,560
now workflow state tied to identity and locked as a structured decision.

690
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:44,000
Not as a message, not as a reaction icon, as a control transition.

691
00:31:44,000 --> 00:31:49,000
And because finance is a right heavy domain, approvals, rooting, updates, the read fast,

692
00:31:49,000 --> 00:31:51,160
right governed rule becomes non-negotiable.

693
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,880
You start with assisted drafting and summarization, sure.

694
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:55,800
But you keep rights supervised and auditable.

695
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:58,720
Otherwise you've just built a faster way to create non-compliance.

696
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,640
If you want the executive version of this scenario, it's simple.

697
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:03,640
Microsoft is where spend pressure gets expressed.

698
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:05,880
Service now is where spend policy gets enforced.

699
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:07,600
ERP is where spend gets recorded.

700
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:11,880
When those three roles stay clean, cycle time improves, audit findings drop and nobody

701
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:13,600
has to ask who approved this.

702
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,800
Like it's a mystery novel and once finance works this way, it becomes impossible to keep pretending

703
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:19,720
service now is just eat.

704
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:21,280
It's the enterprise execution layer.

705
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:25,840
Next, take the same pattern back to the place most organizations think they understand.

706
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:30,480
The major incident war room, where teams feels like the whole story, until change control

707
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:31,720
shows up.

708
00:32:31,720 --> 00:32:36,880
Scenario 4, major IT incident plus change, the war room versus the control system.

709
00:32:36,880 --> 00:32:40,800
Major incidents are where organizations confuse adrenaline with control.

710
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,880
The war room spins up in teams because that's where humans can coordinate at speed.

711
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,680
Voice, chat, screen shares, a running narrative and the one thing people actually need in the

712
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:50,080
first 10 minutes.

713
00:32:50,080 --> 00:32:51,600
Shared situational awareness.

714
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:52,840
Who's on what's impacted?

715
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:53,920
What's the latest signal?

716
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:54,920
What are we trying next?

717
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:55,920
Teams is perfect for that.

718
00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:00,040
It's also the place where most enterprises accidentally move, change control into a chat

719
00:33:00,040 --> 00:33:01,880
thread and call it agility.

720
00:33:01,880 --> 00:33:03,360
Here's the uncomfortable truth.

721
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:06,320
A major incident is not just fix it fast.

722
00:33:06,320 --> 00:33:09,200
It's fix it fast without making the blast radius worse.

723
00:33:09,200 --> 00:33:13,560
The only mechanism enterprises have for controlling blast radius is change management.

724
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:15,480
Not because key Airbnb meetings are fun.

725
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:17,440
Because production doesn't care about feelings.

726
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:20,960
So this scenario is the cleanest proof of the split brain model.

727
00:33:20,960 --> 00:33:22,240
Teams is the war room.

728
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:23,600
Service now is the control system.

729
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:27,720
In the composite enterprise, a major incident usually starts with a flood of symptoms.

730
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:28,720
Users can't log in.

731
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:29,720
An API is timing out.

732
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:33,600
A region is degraded or a minor change from earlier in the day quietly becomes the root

733
00:33:33,600 --> 00:33:35,480
cause of a widespread outage.

734
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:38,240
The first job is triage and coms that belongs in Microsoft.

735
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:42,400
You want incident channels, stay-coulder coms and the ability to brief leadership without

736
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:43,800
digging through 10 portals.

737
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:46,760
But the second job, the dangerous one is execution.

738
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:52,160
Execution is assigned tasks with owners and time boundaries, coordinate remediation steps,

739
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:57,120
create emergency changes, capture approvals, record what was done, and preserve enough evidence

740
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,240
that the post-incident review isn't a religious argument.

741
00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:02,240
That work needs an authoritative state machine.

742
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:03,880
This is where service now earns its keep.

743
00:34:03,880 --> 00:34:05,600
A team's war room can tell a story.

744
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:06,600
It cannot enforce one.

745
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:09,720
A team's thread can say we agreed to reboot the database.

746
00:34:09,720 --> 00:34:14,440
It cannot prove who authorized it, whether the rollback plan existed, or whether that reboot

747
00:34:14,440 --> 00:34:16,520
was part of a control change sequence.

748
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,400
And in a regulated environment, we agreed it's not governance.

749
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:20,400
It's a liability.

750
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:22,720
So the right design is boring and strict.

751
00:34:22,720 --> 00:34:25,480
The major incident record lives in service now.

752
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:30,480
It owns the timeline, the tasks, the coms artifacts, and the dependency map between actions.

753
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:35,840
The team's channel is linked to the major incident record, not treated as a parallel universe.

754
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:37,440
And the problem happens in teams.

755
00:34:37,440 --> 00:34:38,760
Authorities stays in service now.

756
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:42,600
Now the part that always collapses under pressure, emergency change in the war room, someone

757
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,240
says we need to push a conflict change right now.

758
00:34:45,240 --> 00:34:47,640
Another person says just do it, we'll backfill later.

759
00:34:47,640 --> 00:34:51,400
And this is exactly how temporary bypass becomes permanent policy decay.

760
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:52,920
Because the bypass isn't the outage.

761
00:34:52,920 --> 00:34:54,440
The bypass is the future outage.

762
00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:58,440
If you let major incidents teach your teams that controls are optional, you don't get

763
00:34:58,440 --> 00:34:59,640
faster recovery.

764
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:01,160
You get repeatable chaos.

765
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:05,560
So emergency change has to be a first-class workflow, not an apology.

766
00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:06,680
Now can do that.

767
00:35:06,680 --> 00:35:10,360
Create the emergency change record as part of the major incident workflow.

768
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,720
Enforced the minimum approvals required.

769
00:35:12,720 --> 00:35:14,840
Capture the reason for urgency.

770
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:16,520
Link the impacted services.

771
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,400
And record the implementation and rollback steps.

772
00:35:19,400 --> 00:35:23,000
It can keep the blast radius bounded even when humans are improvising.

773
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:24,000
And yes, it adds friction.

774
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:25,000
That's the point.

775
00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:29,200
Friction is what turns someone push the thing into the organization can defend why it push

776
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:30,200
the thing.

777
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:34,080
This is also where good looks counterintuitive to teams first organizations.

778
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,520
It does not mean forcing everyone out of teams.

779
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:40,840
Good means letting teams be the interface while refusing to let it become the system of record

780
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:42,040
for execution.

781
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,440
The incident commander can run comms in teams, but the tasks are created, owned and closed

782
00:35:46,440 --> 00:35:47,440
in service now.

783
00:35:47,440 --> 00:35:50,760
The approvals can be surfaced in teams, but the approval state must be written to the

784
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,520
change record tied to identity with an audit trail.

785
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:56,160
This is where AI tempts people into the wrong move.

786
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:58,960
Copilot can summarize the war room and draft status updates.

787
00:35:58,960 --> 00:35:59,960
Great.

788
00:35:59,960 --> 00:36:04,600
Assist can generate post-incident review drafts and resolution notes, also useful, but

789
00:36:04,600 --> 00:36:09,280
AI cannot be allowed to convert we think into we changed without controls, because right

790
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,560
operations are blast radius multipliers.

791
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:14,400
So the measurable outcome isn't, we had a great war room.

792
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:17,840
It's, did the incident produce a clean authoritative timeline?

793
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:19,160
Did every action have an owner?

794
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,080
Did emergency changes have approvals and rollback paths?

795
00:36:22,080 --> 00:36:27,200
Did the organization avoid creating new security and compliance debt while restoring service?

796
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:28,760
Teams makes the war room fast.

797
00:36:28,760 --> 00:36:30,800
Now makes the recovery defensible.

798
00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:33,920
And if those two responsibilities blur, you don't get resilience.

799
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,320
You get a group chat with production permissions?

800
00:36:36,320 --> 00:36:37,320
Integration.

801
00:36:37,320 --> 00:36:38,320
Reality.

802
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:39,800
Connectors give answers.

803
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:40,960
Orchestration gets outcomes.

804
00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:44,640
Now take those four scenarios and ask the only question that matters once you leave

805
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:45,640
the whiteboard.

806
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:49,840
How do these two worlds actually connect without creating a new category of failure?

807
00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,520
Because integration gets marketed like it's a single thing.

808
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:53,520
It isn't.

809
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:57,500
In practice, there are two modes and confusing them is how organizations end up with a shiny

810
00:36:57,500 --> 00:36:59,500
demo and unchanged throughput.

811
00:36:59,500 --> 00:37:03,660
Mode one is red, mode two is right, read integration is about answers.

812
00:37:03,660 --> 00:37:06,740
It's search, indexing, summaries and quick lookups.

813
00:37:06,740 --> 00:37:08,260
Microsoft has a clean story here.

814
00:37:08,260 --> 00:37:12,660
Microsoft Graph Connectors can index service now content, so co-pilot can retrieve it in

815
00:37:12,660 --> 00:37:14,340
the flow of work.

816
00:37:14,340 --> 00:37:16,820
Incidents, knowledge articles, catalog items.

817
00:37:16,820 --> 00:37:18,500
Those are common connector patterns.

818
00:37:18,500 --> 00:37:22,660
People ask in teams, co-pilot answers with the relevant service now context, and nobody

819
00:37:22,660 --> 00:37:26,340
has to alt tab into another portal just to find a link that is real value.

820
00:37:26,340 --> 00:37:27,780
But it is not orchestration.

821
00:37:27,780 --> 00:37:28,780
It's an information plane.

822
00:37:28,780 --> 00:37:30,340
It reduces context switching.

823
00:37:30,340 --> 00:37:31,780
It reduces time to knowledge.

824
00:37:31,780 --> 00:37:36,900
It reduces the, where do I even find this friction that burns hours across large companies?

825
00:37:36,900 --> 00:37:40,300
And for early adoption, read only is politically easy.

826
00:37:40,300 --> 00:37:45,220
Lower risk, minimal change control, fewer permission arguments and far less blast radius if

827
00:37:45,220 --> 00:37:46,660
something is mis-scoped.

828
00:37:46,660 --> 00:37:50,580
This is why read only wins first, because everyone can agree that finding answers faster

829
00:37:50,580 --> 00:37:55,060
is good, and almost nobody wants to be the executive who approved letting an AI write

830
00:37:55,060 --> 00:37:56,740
to production systems.

831
00:37:56,740 --> 00:37:58,620
Now mode two, write integration.

832
00:37:58,620 --> 00:38:02,820
Write integration is about outcomes, creating the request, updating the record, approving

833
00:38:02,820 --> 00:38:07,220
the step, executing the workflow transition, triggering the containment task, posting the

834
00:38:07,220 --> 00:38:10,620
approval decision, calling the API that changes reality.

835
00:38:10,620 --> 00:38:14,860
Write is orchestration, and orchestration is where governance lives or dies.

836
00:38:14,860 --> 00:38:18,780
Microsoft's path to write typically runs through controlled action frameworks.

837
00:38:18,780 --> 00:38:23,860
Co-pilot studio connectors, approved plugins, explicit API calls, and tooling that can be

838
00:38:23,860 --> 00:38:25,620
governed and monitored.

839
00:38:25,620 --> 00:38:28,060
ServiceNow's side runs through its workflow engine.

840
00:38:28,060 --> 00:38:32,260
Flow designer, integration hub, approval engines, and the record state machine that actually

841
00:38:32,260 --> 00:38:33,260
owns the process.

842
00:38:33,260 --> 00:38:35,220
The architectural point is simple.

843
00:38:35,220 --> 00:38:36,940
Connectors can tell you what's happening.

844
00:38:36,940 --> 00:38:38,260
Orchestration makes something happen.

845
00:38:38,260 --> 00:38:41,540
If you stop at read integration, you'll build what looks like progress, but behaves like

846
00:38:41,540 --> 00:38:42,540
theater.

847
00:38:42,540 --> 00:38:44,860
Co-pilot can summarize an incident, great.

848
00:38:44,860 --> 00:38:49,140
Someone still has to open service now, create tasks, chase approvals and record evidence.

849
00:38:49,140 --> 00:38:51,140
Co-pilot can find the right knowledge article.

850
00:38:51,140 --> 00:38:52,140
Great.

851
00:38:52,140 --> 00:38:55,580
First, to execute the onboarding workflow and enforce identit gates.

852
00:38:55,580 --> 00:38:57,860
Retrieval without execution is just faster browsing.

853
00:38:57,860 --> 00:39:02,380
This is the line where most enterprises get stuck, because moving from read to write forces

854
00:39:02,380 --> 00:39:04,420
three ugly conversations.

855
00:39:04,420 --> 00:39:07,820
First permissions read can tolerate broad access patterns, write cannot.

856
00:39:07,820 --> 00:39:11,540
When you let something create or update records, you are delegating authority.

857
00:39:11,540 --> 00:39:15,340
An authority needs least privilege, explicit scope, and revocation parts.

858
00:39:15,340 --> 00:39:19,180
Otherwise the integration account becomes a permanent super user, and you've created a

859
00:39:19,180 --> 00:39:21,340
bot-shaped insider threat.

860
00:39:21,340 --> 00:39:22,340
You need audit.

861
00:39:22,340 --> 00:39:26,300
If a workflow step gets approved from teams, you need to know who approved it under what

862
00:39:26,300 --> 00:39:29,860
identity with what context and what record state changed as a result.

863
00:39:29,860 --> 00:39:34,740
If you can't prove that, you didn't automate approvals, you created an un-auditable bypass

864
00:39:34,740 --> 00:39:36,340
with a nicer interface.

865
00:39:36,340 --> 00:39:38,980
Third, change control and blast radius.

866
00:39:38,980 --> 00:39:41,900
Read failures are annoying, write failures are incidents.

867
00:39:41,900 --> 00:39:45,420
The moment actions can be triggered from the engagement layer, you need to think like

868
00:39:45,420 --> 00:39:46,820
an architect.

869
00:39:46,820 --> 00:39:51,300
How do you limit scope, monitor behavior, roll back mistakes, and keep the system

870
00:39:51,300 --> 00:39:52,300
deterministic?

871
00:39:52,300 --> 00:39:55,060
So the same operating stance is phased.

872
00:39:55,060 --> 00:39:59,300
Start with search and read only surfaces to reduce context switching and prove adoption.

873
00:39:59,300 --> 00:40:04,780
Clean up knowledge hygiene because AI search will amplify whatever mess you already have.

874
00:40:04,780 --> 00:40:09,300
Then graduate to governed actions, a limited set of requests, updates, and approvals where

875
00:40:09,300 --> 00:40:12,700
workflow state remains authoritative in service now.

876
00:40:12,700 --> 00:40:16,820
Rites are supervised at first because supervised rights are entropy control.

877
00:40:16,820 --> 00:40:19,580
Only then do you talk about agentic execution.

878
00:40:19,580 --> 00:40:22,980
Those agents that can write without guardrails aren't helpful.

879
00:40:22,980 --> 00:40:24,460
They are probabilistic operators.

880
00:40:24,460 --> 00:40:28,060
The integration reality stripped of the sales gloss is this.

881
00:40:28,060 --> 00:40:31,660
Microsoft can be the best front end your enterprise has ever had.

882
00:40:31,660 --> 00:40:35,340
Service now has to remain the execution engine your enterprise can defend.

883
00:40:35,340 --> 00:40:39,700
If you can't separate answering from acting, you will automate, but you'll automate the

884
00:40:39,700 --> 00:40:41,900
wrong thing.

885
00:40:41,900 --> 00:40:45,660
Copilot plus now assist, two brains, two jurisdictions.

886
00:40:45,660 --> 00:40:49,860
Now we get to the part everyone wants to skip to, copilot and now assist, two assistance,

887
00:40:49,860 --> 00:40:53,820
two brands, two demos where someone types a sentence and the system politely pretends

888
00:40:53,820 --> 00:40:55,620
enterprise execution is simple.

889
00:40:55,620 --> 00:40:56,700
Here's the correct framing.

890
00:40:56,700 --> 00:40:58,940
These are two brains with two jurisdictions.

891
00:40:58,940 --> 00:41:03,460
And if you don't define jurisdiction, you get a constitutional crisis at scale.

892
00:41:03,460 --> 00:41:06,580
Copilot's jurisdiction is the Microsoft productivity estate.

893
00:41:06,580 --> 00:41:10,740
It understands meetings, mail chats, files, calendars, and the messy human context that

894
00:41:10,740 --> 00:41:12,500
lives inside M365.

895
00:41:12,500 --> 00:41:16,380
It's good at turning unstructured intent into something coherent.

896
00:41:16,380 --> 00:41:20,380
Summaries, action items, drafts, and what did we decide in that meeting it?

897
00:41:20,380 --> 00:41:22,300
It reduces the cost of thinking and searching.

898
00:41:22,300 --> 00:41:25,780
Now assists jurisdiction is service now operational reality.

899
00:41:25,780 --> 00:41:30,620
It understands records, workflows, knowledge bases, catalog items, case history, assignment

900
00:41:30,620 --> 00:41:34,100
groups, SLAs and the govern state machine that actually moves work.

901
00:41:34,100 --> 00:41:37,940
It's good at turning operational context into controlled next steps.

902
00:41:37,940 --> 00:41:43,180
Occasion, routing, suggested actions, response drafting, and workflow aware assistance for agents.

903
00:41:43,180 --> 00:41:47,100
So if you want a single sentence that doesn't lie, copilot is fluent in human context.

904
00:41:47,100 --> 00:41:49,260
Now assist is fluent in operational state.

905
00:41:49,260 --> 00:41:52,700
That's why two assistance is not redundancy, it's separation of concerns.

906
00:41:52,700 --> 00:41:55,140
But it's also where organizations make a classic mistake.

907
00:41:55,140 --> 00:41:58,100
They assume the assistant that can talk should also be allowed to write.

908
00:41:58,100 --> 00:42:02,380
That's how you get AI actions that are really just permission drift wearing a lab coat.

909
00:42:02,380 --> 00:42:05,900
The integration pattern that actually survives audit is a handoff model.

910
00:42:05,900 --> 00:42:08,660
It operates in teams as the engagement surface.

911
00:42:08,660 --> 00:42:13,660
It captures the request in human terms, pulls relevant Microsoft context, and then hands

912
00:42:13,660 --> 00:42:17,100
off to service now when the next step requires workflow state.

913
00:42:17,100 --> 00:42:20,820
That handoff can look like a service now card, a linked record, or a guided request flow

914
00:42:20,820 --> 00:42:23,980
that lands inside the service now workflow engine.

915
00:42:23,980 --> 00:42:26,060
Now assist does the inverse when needed.

916
00:42:26,060 --> 00:42:30,820
From inside service now it can call Microsoft context to help with communication artifacts,

917
00:42:30,820 --> 00:42:35,820
drafting an incident update email, generating a PowerPoint summary for leadership, or pulling

918
00:42:35,820 --> 00:42:37,700
relevant meeting notes.

919
00:42:37,700 --> 00:42:42,580
Without pretending that the Microsoft artifact is the authoritative record of the incident.

920
00:42:42,580 --> 00:42:44,940
This is not one AI to rule them all.

921
00:42:44,940 --> 00:42:46,660
It's two assistance that delegate properly.

922
00:42:46,660 --> 00:42:50,460
Now the hidden complexity is not the models, it's grounding and permissions.

923
00:42:50,460 --> 00:42:53,540
Grounding is the question of what the assistant is allowed to know.

924
00:42:53,540 --> 00:42:56,060
And what sources it uses to generate an answer.

925
00:42:56,060 --> 00:43:00,220
Copilot is grounded in Microsoft Graph, and whatever your tenant exposes through permissions

926
00:43:00,220 --> 00:43:01,220
and connectors.

927
00:43:01,220 --> 00:43:03,020
Now assist is grounded in service.

928
00:43:03,020 --> 00:43:07,620
Now records and knowledge sources governed by service now access controls and user criteria.

929
00:43:07,620 --> 00:43:12,820
If you blur those boundaries, you get confident nonsense or worse, confident data leakage.

930
00:43:12,820 --> 00:43:14,060
Permissions are the harder landmine.

931
00:43:14,060 --> 00:43:18,220
Copilot can only act within the permissions of the user and the configured connectors.

932
00:43:18,220 --> 00:43:19,540
Same story with now assist.

933
00:43:19,540 --> 00:43:23,380
That sounds comforting until someone fixes a failing integration by giving the connector

934
00:43:23,380 --> 00:43:24,700
account broad access.

935
00:43:24,700 --> 00:43:26,340
Then it works, then nobody reduces it.

936
00:43:26,340 --> 00:43:29,740
Then you've created a silent super user that will outlive the project.

937
00:43:29,740 --> 00:43:32,540
That's not misconfiguration, that's design omission.

938
00:43:32,540 --> 00:43:35,740
This is where jurisdiction becomes a security control, not a diagram.

939
00:43:35,740 --> 00:43:40,060
The assistance can only be as safe as the identity and authorization model they operate under.

940
00:43:40,060 --> 00:43:42,500
And that brings you right back to the operating layer law.

941
00:43:42,500 --> 00:43:44,780
Read can be generous, right must be governed.

942
00:43:44,780 --> 00:43:46,260
So a same design looks like this.

943
00:43:46,260 --> 00:43:50,580
Copilot can read service now contacts through connectors and summarize it for the user in teams,

944
00:43:50,580 --> 00:43:52,460
low blast radius, high adoption.

945
00:43:52,460 --> 00:43:57,380
When the user wants to do something, create a request, approve a change, trigger containment.

946
00:43:57,380 --> 00:44:02,460
The system routes that into service now as a workflow step with explicit identity, logging

947
00:44:02,460 --> 00:44:03,980
and approval state.

948
00:44:03,980 --> 00:44:06,380
Rights are either supervised or constrained by policy.

949
00:44:06,380 --> 00:44:09,420
And if someone wants fully agentic behavior, just take care of it.

950
00:44:09,420 --> 00:44:10,860
The answer is still no.

951
00:44:10,860 --> 00:44:15,100
Not because AI is bad, because enterprises run on constrained authority, not vibes.

952
00:44:15,100 --> 00:44:18,220
So the power play isn't Microsoft versus service now assistance.

953
00:44:18,220 --> 00:44:21,740
The power play is who owns the next step when the assistant finishes talking.

954
00:44:21,740 --> 00:44:26,620
If Copilot closes a conversation but no workflow change state, you created a nicer chat experience.

955
00:44:26,620 --> 00:44:31,060
If now assist proposes an action, but it can't execute it under governance, you created

956
00:44:31,060 --> 00:44:32,340
better suggestions.

957
00:44:32,340 --> 00:44:36,660
The operating layer only exists when the state machine moves with evidence, two brains,

958
00:44:36,660 --> 00:44:38,140
two jurisdictions.

959
00:44:38,140 --> 00:44:42,220
And one non-negotiable boundary, the assistant can speak anywhere, but it can only write

960
00:44:42,220 --> 00:44:43,940
where you can audit it.

961
00:44:43,940 --> 00:44:49,380
AI changes who executes work, deterministic workflows versus probabilistic agents.

962
00:44:49,380 --> 00:44:53,940
Now the uncomfortable part, AI doesn't just change how work is requested, it changes who

963
00:44:53,940 --> 00:44:55,220
is executing work.

964
00:44:55,220 --> 00:44:59,660
And enterprises are about to learn the difference between deterministic systems and probabilistic

965
00:44:59,660 --> 00:45:00,660
ones the hard way.

966
00:45:00,660 --> 00:45:03,220
A deterministic workflow is boring on purpose.

967
00:45:03,220 --> 00:45:06,220
Given the same inputs, it produces the same outcome.

968
00:45:06,220 --> 00:45:11,820
Same rooting, same approvals, same evidence requirements, same SLA timers, same escalation

969
00:45:11,820 --> 00:45:12,820
paths.

970
00:45:12,820 --> 00:45:14,260
It behaves like an authorization compiler.

971
00:45:14,260 --> 00:45:17,700
You feed it policy and state and it decides what's allowed next.

972
00:45:17,700 --> 00:45:19,420
A probabilistic agent is different.

973
00:45:19,420 --> 00:45:23,780
It interprets, it guesses, it ranks options, it can be right for the wrong reasons and

974
00:45:23,780 --> 00:45:25,540
it can be wrong with high confidence.

975
00:45:25,540 --> 00:45:26,540
That's not a flaw.

976
00:45:26,540 --> 00:45:28,260
That's the nature of LL-em based systems.

977
00:45:28,260 --> 00:45:31,220
They generate plausible output, not guaranteed truth.

978
00:45:31,220 --> 00:45:34,260
So the enterprise decision isn't AI or workflows.

979
00:45:34,260 --> 00:45:38,100
It's where does probabilistic behavior belong and where is it forbidden?

980
00:45:38,100 --> 00:45:41,300
AI belongs at the edges of the operating layer.

981
00:45:41,300 --> 00:45:46,180
Intake, summarization, classification suggestions, prioritization and drafting.

982
00:45:46,180 --> 00:45:49,500
It belongs anywhere the primary job is to reduce human cognitive load.

983
00:45:49,500 --> 00:45:53,620
AI does not belong as an unconstrained writer into your execution plane.

984
00:45:53,620 --> 00:45:56,740
Because once an agent can write, it can create state transitions.

985
00:45:56,740 --> 00:46:00,940
It can approve, it can provision access, it can close an incident, it can trigger containment,

986
00:46:00,940 --> 00:46:04,940
it can move money, it can change reality and that's the exact moment your organization

987
00:46:04,940 --> 00:46:06,580
stops being deterministic.

988
00:46:06,580 --> 00:46:08,220
You become probabilistic by design.

989
00:46:08,220 --> 00:46:11,180
This is why human in the loop isn't a temporary phase.

990
00:46:11,180 --> 00:46:14,700
It's the only sustainable operating model for write operations at scale.

991
00:46:14,700 --> 00:46:17,020
Read operations can move autonomous earlier.

992
00:46:17,020 --> 00:46:22,260
Let the assistant fetch records, summarize threads, draft responses and propose the next step.

993
00:46:22,260 --> 00:46:24,220
Read failures are annoying but survivable.

994
00:46:24,220 --> 00:46:26,260
They create confusion, not catastrophe.

995
00:46:26,260 --> 00:46:28,500
Read operations must start supervised.

996
00:46:28,500 --> 00:46:32,140
Every write needs an approval boundary, a logged identity and a rollback story.

997
00:46:32,140 --> 00:46:36,220
Not because compliance people are mean, because entropy is real and write access is the fastest

998
00:46:36,220 --> 00:46:37,540
way to manufacture it.

999
00:46:37,540 --> 00:46:42,620
So the pattern is simple, AI proposes, a workflow enforces, a human authorizes, the system

1000
00:46:42,620 --> 00:46:43,620
records.

1001
00:46:43,620 --> 00:46:45,980
Over time some writes can become more autonomous.

1002
00:46:45,980 --> 00:46:51,020
But only when you can prove that the action is low risk, reversible and observable.

1003
00:46:51,020 --> 00:46:53,620
That's not optimism, that's engineering discipline.

1004
00:46:53,620 --> 00:46:55,820
And this is where governance beats model quality.

1005
00:46:55,820 --> 00:46:57,980
People keep asking, is the model good enough?

1006
00:46:57,980 --> 00:46:59,700
Wrong question, models will improve.

1007
00:46:59,700 --> 00:47:01,180
Your governance won't fix itself.

1008
00:47:01,180 --> 00:47:05,060
If you don't build the guard rails now, you'll just accelerate your existing dysfunction

1009
00:47:05,060 --> 00:47:06,060
later.

1010
00:47:06,060 --> 00:47:10,380
Governance means, least privilege for connectors and agents, explicit scopes, approval gates

1011
00:47:10,380 --> 00:47:13,820
for state changes and audit trails that survive executive turnover.

1012
00:47:13,820 --> 00:47:17,060
It also means you can answer the only question auditors care about.

1013
00:47:17,060 --> 00:47:19,900
Who did what, under what authority and why?

1014
00:47:19,900 --> 00:47:23,060
Rollback paths matter here more than anyone wants to admit.

1015
00:47:23,060 --> 00:47:27,300
If an agent creates a service now, change record and schedules work, can you stop it?

1016
00:47:27,300 --> 00:47:29,980
If it grants access, can you revoke it automatically?

1017
00:47:29,980 --> 00:47:33,980
If it updates a security incident, can you reconstruct the exact sequence of actions without

1018
00:47:33,980 --> 00:47:35,220
relying on chat logs?

1019
00:47:35,220 --> 00:47:36,820
If you can't, you don't have automation.

1020
00:47:36,820 --> 00:47:38,940
You have accelerated risk.

1021
00:47:38,940 --> 00:47:42,140
This is why AI inside workflows creates outcomes.

1022
00:47:42,140 --> 00:47:45,100
Isn't a motivational line, it's an architectural constraint.

1023
00:47:45,100 --> 00:47:49,180
AI should live inside the workflow state machine, not beside it.

1024
00:47:49,180 --> 00:47:51,420
The workflow provides determinism.

1025
00:47:51,420 --> 00:47:54,140
Steps, gates, evidence and ownership.

1026
00:47:54,140 --> 00:47:58,180
AI provides judgment support, summarized, recommend and draft.

1027
00:47:58,180 --> 00:48:01,100
Together you get throughput without losing control.

1028
00:48:01,100 --> 00:48:04,260
Without the workflow, AI becomes a noise generator.

1029
00:48:04,260 --> 00:48:09,220
More suggestions, more messages, more help and no authoritative state change.

1030
00:48:09,220 --> 00:48:11,460
People feel busy, nothing finishes.

1031
00:48:11,460 --> 00:48:14,860
And when AI does start finishing things without workflows, it finishes them in whatever

1032
00:48:14,860 --> 00:48:16,740
way seems plausible at the time.

1033
00:48:16,740 --> 00:48:18,580
That's conditional chaos with better grammar.

1034
00:48:18,580 --> 00:48:22,940
So the strategic move for the enterprise isn't a chase fully autonomous agents.

1035
00:48:22,940 --> 00:48:27,780
The strategic move is to redesign execution so that autonomy is a controlled gradient.

1036
00:48:27,780 --> 00:48:32,540
Read first autonomy, supervised rights, then selective automation where risk is bounded.

1037
00:48:32,540 --> 00:48:36,100
The system doesn't care about your intent, it only respects what you enforce.

1038
00:48:36,100 --> 00:48:40,180
Failure modes, workflow, entropy, shadow automation and permission drift.

1039
00:48:40,180 --> 00:48:44,060
Every integration story sounds clean until it hits the three forces that always win in

1040
00:48:44,060 --> 00:48:45,460
the real enterprise.

1041
00:48:45,460 --> 00:48:47,700
Urgency, convenience and forgetting.

1042
00:48:47,700 --> 00:48:50,980
Those forces don't break platforms, they break your assumptions.

1043
00:48:50,980 --> 00:48:53,020
And they always express themselves the same way.

1044
00:48:53,020 --> 00:48:55,900
Workflow, entropy, shadow automation and permission drift.

1045
00:48:55,900 --> 00:48:58,220
Workflow, entropy is the quiet killer.

1046
00:48:58,220 --> 00:49:00,100
It starts as a temporary exception.

1047
00:49:00,100 --> 00:49:01,540
A manager needs access today.

1048
00:49:01,540 --> 00:49:05,660
A procurement approval gets rushed because quarter end, a change gets pushed without the

1049
00:49:05,660 --> 00:49:08,020
formal step because the outage clock is running.

1050
00:49:08,020 --> 00:49:09,820
Nobody thinks they're undermining governance.

1051
00:49:09,820 --> 00:49:11,420
They think they're being helpful.

1052
00:49:11,420 --> 00:49:13,820
Then that exception becomes the actual process.

1053
00:49:13,820 --> 00:49:17,260
Not because anyone chose it but because the exception path is faster than the policy

1054
00:49:17,260 --> 00:49:18,260
path.

1055
00:49:18,260 --> 00:49:21,460
People root around friction the same way water roots around rocks.

1056
00:49:21,460 --> 00:49:26,500
Over time your documented workflow becomes ceremonial and your real workflow becomes DM the

1057
00:49:26,500 --> 00:49:28,740
right person, get a thumbs up, move on.

1058
00:49:28,740 --> 00:49:33,220
That's why conditional access exceptions, emergency approvals and bypass routes are entropy

1059
00:49:33,220 --> 00:49:34,220
generators.

1060
00:49:34,220 --> 00:49:35,460
They don't just create one gap.

1061
00:49:35,460 --> 00:49:38,980
They teach the organization that state transitions are optional.

1062
00:49:38,980 --> 00:49:43,020
Once state transitions are optional, your system of action becomes a logging tool.

1063
00:49:43,020 --> 00:49:46,100
It records the mess after the fact it doesn't control it.

1064
00:49:46,100 --> 00:49:48,220
The second failure mode is shadow automation.

1065
00:49:48,220 --> 00:49:51,340
This is where teams and power automate become a parallel universe.

1066
00:49:51,340 --> 00:49:55,140
Someone builds a flow that posts a message to a channel when an email arrives.

1067
00:49:55,140 --> 00:49:58,260
Someone builds a form that creates a task list in planner.

1068
00:49:58,260 --> 00:50:01,020
Someone wires up approvals and chat because it's just easier.

1069
00:50:01,020 --> 00:50:02,180
And on day one it works.

1070
00:50:02,180 --> 00:50:03,180
Of course it works.

1071
00:50:03,180 --> 00:50:04,860
Local automation always works locally.

1072
00:50:04,860 --> 00:50:07,940
The problem is what it displaces, governed orchestration.

1073
00:50:07,940 --> 00:50:09,940
Shadow automation doesn't fail because it's malicious.

1074
00:50:09,940 --> 00:50:11,420
It fails because it's unowned.

1075
00:50:11,420 --> 00:50:14,820
No life cycle, no audit story, no defined blast radius.

1076
00:50:14,820 --> 00:50:19,420
The builder leaves, the flow keeps running and the next incident response includes.

1077
00:50:19,420 --> 00:50:22,820
Nobody knows what triggers this but it's been doing it for months.

1078
00:50:22,820 --> 00:50:26,100
That's what happens when you treat the engagement plane as the execution plane.

1079
00:50:26,100 --> 00:50:30,340
Now the third failure mode is the one that makes security teams tired permission drift.

1080
00:50:30,340 --> 00:50:35,340
Integrations require permissions, AI assistance require permissions, connectors require permissions.

1081
00:50:35,340 --> 00:50:39,380
And when something fails during setup, the quickest fix is always the same.

1082
00:50:39,380 --> 00:50:40,700
Just give it more access.

1083
00:50:40,700 --> 00:50:43,900
So you create an integration account, you grant board graph permissions,

1084
00:50:43,900 --> 00:50:47,540
you grant broad service, now roles, you get the demo working, everyone claps,

1085
00:50:47,540 --> 00:50:49,780
then nobody goes back and reduces scope.

1086
00:50:49,780 --> 00:50:52,620
Six months later that account has more access than most humans.

1087
00:50:52,620 --> 00:50:56,900
It's a permanent super user with no human manager, no quarterly access review,

1088
00:50:56,900 --> 00:50:59,300
and no business owner who can explain why it exists.

1089
00:50:59,300 --> 00:51:02,860
That's not misconfiguration, that's architectural erosion.

1090
00:51:02,860 --> 00:51:04,820
And permission drift doesn't stay in one place.

1091
00:51:04,820 --> 00:51:05,540
It spreads.

1092
00:51:05,540 --> 00:51:08,540
A second connector gets deployed and reuses the same account.

1093
00:51:08,540 --> 00:51:09,860
A third flow depends on it.

1094
00:51:09,860 --> 00:51:12,940
Now you can't fix it without breaking business critical automation.

1095
00:51:12,940 --> 00:51:15,820
That's how security that becomes operational dependency.

1096
00:51:15,820 --> 00:51:16,820
Here's the weird part.

1097
00:51:16,820 --> 00:51:19,500
AI accelerates all three failure modes.

1098
00:51:19,500 --> 00:51:24,300
Workflow entropy gets faster because AI makes it easier to justify exceptions.

1099
00:51:24,300 --> 00:51:25,900
Copilot says it's low risk.

1100
00:51:25,900 --> 00:51:31,700
Shadow automation gets faster because AI makes it easier to build flows without understanding the governance model.

1101
00:51:31,700 --> 00:51:35,340
Permission drift gets faster because agents that can act need permissions

1102
00:51:35,340 --> 00:51:37,620
and people will overscope them to avoid friction.

1103
00:51:37,620 --> 00:51:40,140
That's why AI without workflows creates noise.

1104
00:51:40,140 --> 00:51:42,380
But AI with bad workflows creates damage.

1105
00:51:42,380 --> 00:51:44,500
So the prevention strategy is not a checklist.

1106
00:51:44,500 --> 00:51:46,060
It's an operating stance you enforce.

1107
00:51:46,060 --> 00:51:48,540
First, treat exceptions as first class objects.

1108
00:51:48,540 --> 00:51:52,940
If someone needs a bypass, capture it as an exception in the workflow with a reason,

1109
00:51:52,940 --> 00:51:54,980
an approver, and an expiration.

1110
00:51:54,980 --> 00:51:56,900
No expiration means it's not an exception.

1111
00:51:56,900 --> 00:51:58,500
It's a hidden policy change.

1112
00:51:58,500 --> 00:52:02,100
Second, treat automations as production assets.

1113
00:52:02,100 --> 00:52:06,020
If it can write, it needs ownership, life cycle management, and controls.

1114
00:52:06,020 --> 00:52:07,580
Otherwise, it's a ghost system.

1115
00:52:07,580 --> 00:52:10,780
Third, treat permissions as temporary until proven otherwise.

1116
00:52:10,780 --> 00:52:12,300
These privileges are not a principle.

1117
00:52:12,300 --> 00:52:13,620
It's entropy management.

1118
00:52:13,620 --> 00:52:17,540
If you don't continuously pull scope back, it will only expand.

1119
00:52:17,540 --> 00:52:19,580
The workflow first operating model,

1120
00:52:19,580 --> 00:52:21,820
re-platform execution in phases.

1121
00:52:21,820 --> 00:52:24,660
So if the diagnosis is workflow fragmentation,

1122
00:52:24,660 --> 00:52:26,820
the treatment isn't by more apps.

1123
00:52:26,820 --> 00:52:30,180
It's re-platforming execution, not migrating tickets,

1124
00:52:30,180 --> 00:52:32,020
not rolling out another chatbot,

1125
00:52:32,020 --> 00:52:34,060
re-platforming the operating layer,

1126
00:52:34,060 --> 00:52:37,500
where work starts, how it moves, who can change state,

1127
00:52:37,500 --> 00:52:40,060
and how the organization proves what happened later.

1128
00:52:40,060 --> 00:52:43,140
And the first step is the one everyone skips because it's not glamorous.

1129
00:52:43,140 --> 00:52:44,340
Mapping execution.

1130
00:52:44,340 --> 00:52:46,340
Not processing mapping as a PowerPoint hobby.

1131
00:52:46,340 --> 00:52:47,420
Execution mapping.

1132
00:52:47,420 --> 00:52:48,900
Where does work actually begin?

1133
00:52:48,900 --> 00:52:50,300
What are the real approval gates?

1134
00:52:50,300 --> 00:52:51,500
What systems change state?

1135
00:52:51,500 --> 00:52:54,500
And what metrics define done across domains?

1136
00:52:54,500 --> 00:52:57,100
If you can't draw the end-to-end chain for onboarding,

1137
00:52:57,100 --> 00:53:00,180
incident containment, finance approvals, and emergency change,

1138
00:53:00,180 --> 00:53:01,300
you don't have processes.

1139
00:53:01,300 --> 00:53:02,060
You have traditions.

1140
00:53:02,060 --> 00:53:04,380
Now the split of ownership is non-negotiable.

1141
00:53:04,380 --> 00:53:07,500
Service now owns workflow state, routing, audit, enforcement,

1142
00:53:07,500 --> 00:53:10,540
Microsoft owns collaboration, content, intent, capture,

1143
00:53:10,540 --> 00:53:12,140
and the surfaces where humans live.

1144
00:53:12,140 --> 00:53:13,180
This is not a preference.

1145
00:53:13,180 --> 00:53:15,220
It's how you prevent authority drift.

1146
00:53:15,220 --> 00:53:17,620
Because the moment teams becomes the authoritative system

1147
00:53:17,620 --> 00:53:21,220
for approvals or changes, you've turned chat into a control plane.

1148
00:53:21,220 --> 00:53:22,540
And chat is not a control plane.

1149
00:53:22,540 --> 00:53:23,460
It is not.

1150
00:53:23,460 --> 00:53:25,860
So the operating model is faced because enterprises

1151
00:53:25,860 --> 00:53:27,580
don't change in one cutover.

1152
00:53:27,580 --> 00:53:29,420
They degrade and improve ingredients.

1153
00:53:29,420 --> 00:53:31,380
Phase one is about reducing context switching

1154
00:53:31,380 --> 00:53:32,740
without moving authority.

1155
00:53:32,740 --> 00:53:35,100
This is where you embed service now into teams,

1156
00:53:35,100 --> 00:53:37,100
service records, and use search connectors

1157
00:53:37,100 --> 00:53:39,860
so people can find knowledge, incidents, and catalog items

1158
00:53:39,860 --> 00:53:41,060
from where they already work.

1159
00:53:41,060 --> 00:53:42,620
It's intentionally read heavy.

1160
00:53:42,620 --> 00:53:44,780
The goal is adoption and friction removal.

1161
00:53:44,780 --> 00:53:45,940
Fewer portals.

1162
00:53:45,940 --> 00:53:47,300
Fewer, where do I do this?

1163
00:53:47,300 --> 00:53:49,860
Fewer screenshots as status updates.

1164
00:53:49,860 --> 00:53:52,060
But it's also where you clean your knowledge hygiene.

1165
00:53:52,060 --> 00:53:54,700
Because AI search will amplify whatever mess you've allowed

1166
00:53:54,700 --> 00:53:55,420
to accumulate.

1167
00:53:55,420 --> 00:53:58,340
If the knowledge base is stale, your new AI assistant

1168
00:53:58,340 --> 00:54:01,020
will simply produce confident stale answers at scale.

1169
00:54:01,020 --> 00:54:02,060
That's not transformation.

1170
00:54:02,060 --> 00:54:04,420
That's automated misinformation.

1171
00:54:04,420 --> 00:54:06,300
Phase two is governed actions.

1172
00:54:06,300 --> 00:54:09,660
This is where you stop pretending that retrieval equals execution.

1173
00:54:09,660 --> 00:54:11,260
Pick a small set of right paths that

1174
00:54:11,260 --> 00:54:12,940
map cleanly to workflows.

1175
00:54:12,940 --> 00:54:15,340
Submit a catalog request, update an incident,

1176
00:54:15,340 --> 00:54:18,100
approve a step, escalate a case, open a change.

1177
00:54:18,100 --> 00:54:20,300
Then make those rights flow through service now

1178
00:54:20,300 --> 00:54:22,180
as authoritative state transitions.

1179
00:54:22,180 --> 00:54:24,020
The user can click approve in teams.

1180
00:54:24,020 --> 00:54:24,700
Fine.

1181
00:54:24,700 --> 00:54:27,180
But the approval must land as a workflow transition

1182
00:54:27,180 --> 00:54:29,180
in service now tied to identity,

1183
00:54:29,180 --> 00:54:30,860
logged, and constrained by policy.

1184
00:54:30,860 --> 00:54:32,780
The engagement plane can host the button.

1185
00:54:32,780 --> 00:54:34,460
The execution plane owns the truth.

1186
00:54:34,460 --> 00:54:36,900
This is also where you enforce least privilege, like you mean it.

1187
00:54:36,900 --> 00:54:39,180
Integration accounts don't get broad access

1188
00:54:39,180 --> 00:54:40,660
because someone had a demo deadline.

1189
00:54:40,660 --> 00:54:43,780
Agents don't get right scope, just because it's easier.

1190
00:54:43,780 --> 00:54:45,860
Every connector and assistant get scoped

1191
00:54:45,860 --> 00:54:47,820
to the minimum set of actions required.

1192
00:54:47,820 --> 00:54:50,620
And it gets reviewed like any other privileged identity.

1193
00:54:50,620 --> 00:54:52,580
Because permissions are not a set-up step.

1194
00:54:52,580 --> 00:54:54,100
They are an operational liability.

1195
00:54:54,100 --> 00:54:56,220
Phase three is a genetic execution.

1196
00:54:56,220 --> 00:54:57,940
And it's where most organizations rush

1197
00:54:57,940 --> 00:54:59,660
because the demos look magical.

1198
00:54:59,660 --> 00:55:01,260
But a genetic execution only works

1199
00:55:01,260 --> 00:55:02,940
when two conditions are already true.

1200
00:55:02,940 --> 00:55:04,500
The workflow state machine is clean

1201
00:55:04,500 --> 00:55:06,140
and the right controls are enforceable.

1202
00:55:06,140 --> 00:55:07,620
Otherwise, you're not deploying agents.

1203
00:55:07,620 --> 00:55:09,340
You're deploying entropy accelerators.

1204
00:55:09,340 --> 00:55:10,380
So the rule is simple.

1205
00:55:10,380 --> 00:55:12,500
Autonomous reads can expand quickly.

1206
00:55:12,500 --> 00:55:14,460
Supervised rights expands slowly.

1207
00:55:14,460 --> 00:55:16,700
And only after you've proven that an action is low risk,

1208
00:55:16,700 --> 00:55:19,220
reversible and observable does it earn more autonomy.

1209
00:55:19,220 --> 00:55:22,060
This is also where observability stops being optional.

1210
00:55:22,060 --> 00:55:24,420
If an agent can propose actions, you need to see what it

1211
00:55:24,420 --> 00:55:26,660
proposed, what was approved, what it executed,

1212
00:55:26,660 --> 00:55:27,900
and what changed as a result.

1213
00:55:27,900 --> 00:55:30,540
You need traceability across Microsoft and ServiceNow,

1214
00:55:30,540 --> 00:55:33,260
the intent source, the workflow state and the outcome record.

1215
00:55:33,260 --> 00:55:35,780
If you can't reconstruct the chain, you have no governance.

1216
00:55:35,780 --> 00:55:37,020
You have vibes.

1217
00:55:37,020 --> 00:55:38,580
And the biggest architectural discipline

1218
00:55:38,580 --> 00:55:39,980
in this whole model is rollback.

1219
00:55:39,980 --> 00:55:43,140
Workflows without rollback are just scripted confidence.

1220
00:55:43,140 --> 00:55:46,340
Every right path needs an undue story, revoke access,

1221
00:55:46,340 --> 00:55:49,820
canceled procurement, rollback a change, reopen the incident,

1222
00:55:49,820 --> 00:55:50,980
restore the prior state.

1223
00:55:50,980 --> 00:55:53,700
Otherwise, your automation becomes a one-way door.

1224
00:55:53,700 --> 00:55:56,580
And one-way doors are how incidents become outages.

1225
00:55:56,580 --> 00:55:58,420
So the workflow first operating model

1226
00:55:58,420 --> 00:56:00,900
is basically enterprise humility formalized,

1227
00:56:00,900 --> 00:56:04,300
humans generate intent in Microsoft, systems execute intent

1228
00:56:04,300 --> 00:56:07,020
in ServiceNow, AI accelerates the edges, not the center,

1229
00:56:07,020 --> 00:56:08,740
and control is what survives pressure.

1230
00:56:08,740 --> 00:56:11,820
That's the point, not convenience, not novelty.

1231
00:56:11,820 --> 00:56:14,380
Control that still works when people are tired, urgent,

1232
00:56:14,380 --> 00:56:15,700
and improvising.

1233
00:56:15,700 --> 00:56:18,660
Execution throughput is the actual power play.

1234
00:56:18,660 --> 00:56:21,500
The power play isn't copilot versus now assist.

1235
00:56:21,500 --> 00:56:23,140
It's building an operating layer

1236
00:56:23,140 --> 00:56:26,300
where intent becomes governed execution every time.

1237
00:56:26,300 --> 00:56:29,220
If you want the next episode, it's on where governance fails first,

1238
00:56:29,220 --> 00:56:32,540
identity connectors or quick exceptions that become policy.

1239
00:56:32,540 --> 00:56:34,740
Subscribe and watch that one next.