From Classroom to Enterprise: Students Build AI-Enabled Solutions with ServiceNow

How did students learn?

Students learned through a cycle of building, testing, feedback, and refinement. They began by interpreting the overtime challenge and identifying what a successful solution would need to achieve for different users. They then translated those requirements into workflows, platform features, approval routes, and user interactions within ServiceNow. This process required them to make design decisions, test assumptions, and adapt their thinking as the practical implications of the system became clearer. The final pitch gave students a professional setting in which to explain the value of their solution and demonstrate how their work addressed the original challenge.

This approach helped students experience the difference between learning about enterprise systems and actually designing within one. They had to consider the relationship between technology, people, and process, including how users interact with a system and how organisations gain visibility over activity. The AI dimension made this especially current, because ServiceNow increasingly places AI at the centre of how enterprise workflows are improved, automated, and made more responsive. As a result, the practicum developed technical capability alongside teamwork, communication, judgement, and professional confidence.

Key benefits for students included:

• Working on a real business problem: students moved beyond simulated classroom tasks and worked on a challenge grounded in organisational practice. The overtime solution required them to consider how processes operate in real environments, including approvals, escalation, delay management, data handling, and user adoption.
• Applied experience with ServiceNow and AI: the practicum introduced students to a major enterprise platform and showed how AI can support workflow-based solutions. This helped students understand how emerging technologies can be used to improve processes, support decision making, and create more effective service experiences.
• Direct engagement with industry professionals: through expert-led sessions, mentoring, and continuous support, students received guidance from professionals familiar with ServiceNow, enterprise technology, and applied digital transformation. This gave students insight into how industry practitioners frame problems, evaluate solutions, and support implementation.
• Professional skills development: the practicum required students to collaborate in teams, manage uncertainty, respond to feedback, explain technical decisions, and pitch their final solution. These are core employability skills that complement academic and technical learning.
• Pathways to further training and certification: students were given opportunities to pursue ServiceNow certifications and additional training during and after the practicum. This helped position the practicum not only as a course experience, but also as a bridge into future career development.