It’s a new chapter for Element AI, as Jean-François Gagné, founder and CEO of the company said in a blog post. Indeed, the American company ServiceNow has announced the conclusion of an agreement to acquire the Montreal-based start-up for an undisclosed amount.

The high-profile acquisition of Element AI will make a significant contribution to ServiceNow’s mission to build the world’s most powerful workflow management platform to enable employees to work faster and more efficiently, streamline decision making and achieve new levels of productivity.

A true AI pioneer, Element AI includes world-renowned scientists and experts whose expertise in the application of modern AI to text and language, chat, images, search, Q&A, and abstract production will greatly accelerate the native integration of AI into the Now platform. Yoshua Bengio, Senior Fellow, co-founder of Element AI and winner of the A.M. Turing Award by the ACM in 2018 for his groundbreaking contribution to modern AI, will serve as a technical advisor for ServiceNow.

Following the acquisition of Element AI, ServiceNow will create a new AI hub in Canada to accelerate the development of client-centric innovations for the Now platform. This new investment reaffirms ServiceNow’s commitment to the Canadian market, a historical leader in AI research and a magnet for top international AI talent. The establishment of an AI innovation hub in Canada follows the creation of technology development centres in Chicago, Hyderabad, Kirkland, Washington, San Diego and Silicon Valley.

“Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving to meet the needs of companies seeking to transform processes and business models that are still stuck in the 20th century,” says Vijay Narayanan, Director of AI at ServiceNow.

“ServiceNow will lead this revolution in the world of work, an opportunity that may only come along once in a generation. By leveraging Element AI’s powerful AI capabilities and brilliant minds, ServiceNow will allow employees to fully focus on areas where only humans excel: creative thinking, customer interactions and managing the unexpected. It’s a smarter way to optimize workflows. »

ServiceNow is currently seeing strong demand for its IA-powered products, including its IT, customer service and human resources management solutions IT Service Management Pro,Customer Service Management Pro and HR Service Delivery Pro. By integrating practical and specific AI and analytics capabilities into its Now platform and workflow management software, ServiceNow enables organizations to leverage AI in their daily business, for example, to capture and summarize relevant information from text, analyze various content and conversations, make forecasts and recommendations, optimize their actions, or automate repetitive tasks.

“Element AI’s vision has always been to redefine the use of AI by businesses to help people work smarter,” said Jean-François Gagné, founder and CEO of Element AI.

“ServiceNow is leading the workflow revolution and we are inspired by its mission to make the world of work simpler for workers. ServiceNow was a natural partner for us to harness our talent and technology to the biggest challenges facing the business today. »

The acquisition of Element AI is ServiceNow’s latest strategic investment to accelerate the integration of AI into the Now platform. In March of this year, the company recruited Mr. Narayanan and launched Now Intelligence, a suite of powerful AI capabilities designed to help customers translate data into action. Element AI is the fourth AI company acquired by ServiceNow in 2020, following Loom Systems, Passage AI and Sweagle.

Thanks to its revolutionary breakthroughs in the modern AI industry over the past decade, Element AI is in a privileged position within the global AI community. Element AI was founded in 2016 by President and CEO Jean-François Gagné and by Anne Martel, Nicolas Chapados, Jean-Sébastien Cournoyer, Yoshua Bengio and Philippe Beaudoin.

ServiceNow expects to complete the acquisition of Element AI in early 2021.

Translated from ServiceNow annonce l’acquisition prochaine d’Element AI pour enrichir sa plateforme de gestion des workflows