ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott: “Within 18 Months, AI Will Allow Companies to Start Creating Jobs Again”
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Under CEO Bill McDermott’s leadership, the American software giant ServiceNow has accelerated its shift toward agent-based AI and cybersecurity.
Bill McDermott likes aviation metaphors. To summarize the complexity large companies face with the arrival of artificial intelligence agents, ServiceNow’s CEO readily draws a parallel between a GPS and an air traffic control system. The former is a powerful tool, but it optimizes only one route, whereas the latter simultaneously coordinates thousands of moving elements while ensuring the safety of the entire system. And agent-based AI requires that kind of control tower within companies.
For the past three years, companies have invested a great deal of time and money in developing agents to revolutionize certain processes, but managing the entire system at the enterprise level remains laborious.
“There is still too much experimentation and too many pilot projects, because that is how things were approached in the past. But in doing so, we expose ourselves to security risks, because these pilot projects access the company’s databases and critical infrastructure without necessarily being adequately governed by rules and the right safeguards,” McDermott said during a visit to Paris. The rapid rise of agent-based technologies makes governance and security a top priority. “Within three years, there will be 2.2 billion AI agents in the global economy. Their adoption by businesses will be massive,” the former CEO of SAP said. Yet very few companies are preparing for this properly.
First, legacy IT systems, which have accumulated over the past few decades, still too often prevent reliable data from flowing as smoothly and securely as it should. “That is precisely why an AI model cannot establish itself on its own within a company and function as well as we would all like,” McDermott explained. Meanwhile, addressing cybersecurity is becoming even more crucial. “If you do not have rules and frameworks in place, you are exposing yourself to a very high risk of intrusion in a world dominated by AI. This problem is already costing the global economy a great deal, and the situation will worsen as the automation of malicious AI agents grows at a dizzying rate,” he said.
Founded in 2004 in Santa Clara, California, ServiceNow has accelerated its transformation in recent years. Under its CEO’s leadership, the platform for cloud-connected software applications (HR, finance, customer service, etc.) has strengthened its AI capabilities over the past two years through a series of acquisitions. Well-established globally — it counts 85% of Fortune 500 companies among its clients — it benefits from a deep understanding of business processes that is highly valuable in the current wave of innovation. Last year, ServiceNow also completed the largest transaction in its history by acquiring the cybersecurity startup Armis for $7.75 billion, in order to expand its capabilities beyond its traditional core business. The goal: to help companies manage and organize AI agents from different providers. For a company, organizing its governance in the age of agent-based AI involves “assigning identities to AI agents, robots and intelligent machines, just as we do for humans,” McDermott said. The overall aim is to better control risks and access, and to give security teams complete visibility and granular control over the information system.
With a market capitalization exceeding $146 billion, ServiceNow has become, in the eyes of investors, one of the major beneficiaries of the new wave of AI agents. Its stock has risen more than 40% since February. Yet the company was not spared by the storm that hit the software sector — a phenomenon known as the “SaaSpocalypse.” At the time, the release of Anthropic’s Claude Cowork AI tools had made such an impression with their ability to automate certain business processes that several analysts predicted the imminent demise of software publishers. “What nonsense! On the contrary, this is a situation where knowledge plays an essential role. AI needs to operate from east to west or north to south within the complexity of a company, with clear lines of communication,” McDermott said.
For him, accelerating AI adoption is a prerequisite for companies’ future growth. “Companies are not reacting fast enough. Today, you can lose your markets faster than at any other time in history. Those that act quickly will enjoy a competitive advantage over those that are slower,” he said. But it is important not to confuse speed with haste. Some companies, such as Ford and Klarna, were too quick to replace employees in certain processes and rehired humans after realizing that artificial intelligence could not adequately replace human expertise. “You have to ask the right questions: What can your employees do better than AI? That is where human capital strategy comes in. Who should be dedicated to high-value-added, high-yield tasks? And conversely, where can machines take over? That is what will allow companies to grow,” the CEO said.
Are serious consequences for employment on the horizon? The CEO is more optimistic. “Job creation is likely to remain relatively stable for a year, or even 18 months. But after that, we will see enormous productivity gains from AI, and companies will be able to implement new ideas and sources of growth, new business models. And that is when jobs will begin to be created,” he said.
McDermott is particularly confident about his own company, which he expects to have a market capitalization of $1 trillion by 2030. Its subscription revenue is set to reach $15.7 billion by 2026 (representing 21% year-over-year growth), a figure he plans to double within four years. Despite his extensive experience in technology, the CEO said: “We have never seen a period like this before. We are witnessing a tremendous supercycle of investment in AI. That is currently lifting all boats, but the ‘good’ boats will rise even higher.”
“That’s how I see it,” he concluded.
