ServiceNow just spent $7.75 billion to solve a problem most enterprises don’t know they have yet.
In January 2026, ServiceNow announced its largest acquisition ever: Armis, a cyber exposure management platform, for $7.75 billion in cash. But this wasn’t an isolated move. It was the culmination of an acquisition strategy that signals a fundamental shift in how the enterprise software market views AI governance.
When a $200 billion platform company makes its largest purchase in history, it’s worth paying attention to what they’re buying—and why.
The Acquisition Timeline
ServiceNow’s 2025 spending spree tells a coherent story. In January 2025, they acquired Cuein, an AI-native conversation data analysis platform. In April, they announced the acquisition of Logik.ai, an AI-powered configure-price-quote solution. Then came Moveworks for $2.85 billion, Data.World for data governance, and Veza for identity security.
The Armis deal dwarfs them all. At $7.75 billion in cash—more than twice the Moveworks price—it represents a massive bet on the convergence of AI, security, and operational technology. Combined with the earlier acquisitions, ServiceNow is assembling capabilities that span AI conversation analysis, data governance, identity management, and now comprehensive exposure management across IT, OT, and IoT environments.
This isn’t a collection of opportunistic purchases. It’s a deliberate construction of an AI governance stack.
The AI Control Tower Vision
ServiceNow has been explicit about their strategic direction. They’re positioning themselves not just as an AI platform, but as what they call an “AI Control Tower”—a unified system that governs and manages AI across the enterprise.
In the Armis announcement, ServiceNow President Amit Zavery stated it directly: “In the agentic AI era, intelligent trust and governance that span any cloud, any asset, any AI system, and any device are non-negotiable if companies want to scale AI for the long-term.”
That framing matters. ServiceNow isn’t just saying AI governance is important. They’re saying it’s non-negotiable for scaling AI—and they’re willing to spend nearly $8 billion to prove the point.
The Armis acquisition specifically addresses a visibility gap that most organizations haven’t fully reckoned with. Without knowing what’s connected across IT, operational technology, IoT, and physical environments, ServiceNow argues that “workflow automation, AI governance, and risk prioritization all collapse into theatre.” You can write policies all day, but if you can’t see what’s actually happening across your technology footprint, those policies are aspirational at best.
Why This Matters for Every Enterprise
ServiceNow’s acquisition strategy validates a market reality that’s been emerging for the past two years. AI governance isn’t a nice-to-have feature for compliance teams to worry about later. It’s becoming a core enterprise capability—one that established platform companies are racing to own.
Consider what this signals. A company with ServiceNow’s market intelligence—they see how their 8,100+ enterprise customers are actually deploying technology—has concluded that AI governance is worth a multi-billion dollar bet. They’re not experimenting. They’re going all-in.
This has several implications for enterprise leaders.
First, the governance problem is real and urgent. If you’ve been treating agentic AI governance as a future concern, the market is moving faster than that timeline allows. ServiceNow, Microsoft, Salesforce, and other major platforms are all investing heavily in AI governance capabilities. They’re building for a future where governance is expected, not optional.
Second, visibility is the foundation. Every acquisition ServiceNow made connects to visibility in some way—seeing AI conversations, understanding data flows, tracking identities, monitoring connected devices. You can’t govern what you can’t see, and the platform leaders are racing to be the ones who provide that visibility layer.
Third, the vendor landscape is consolidating. When large platforms acquire specialized governance capabilities, they’re signaling an intent to own that layer of the stack. Organizations that wait too long may find themselves choosing between platform lock-in and building custom solutions from scratch.
The Broader Pattern
ServiceNow isn’t alone in this recognition. Microsoft has been embedding governance capabilities across its Copilot ecosystem. Salesforce is building AI controls into its platform. AWS, Google Cloud, and Azure are all developing AI governance tooling.
The pattern is clear: every major platform company has concluded that AI governance will be a battleground for enterprise relationships. They’re not just selling AI capabilities—they’re selling the ability to control, secure, and measure those capabilities.
This creates both opportunity and risk for enterprises. The opportunity is that governance capabilities will become more accessible as platform providers compete to offer them. The risk is that governance becomes another vector for platform lock-in, with organizations finding themselves dependent on a single vendor not just for AI capabilities but for their ability to manage and measure those capabilities.
What This Means for Your AI Strategy
The ServiceNow acquisitions should prompt several strategic questions for enterprise leaders.
If you’re still waiting for AI governance, the market isn’t. The leading platform companies are spending billions to build governance capabilities. They’re doing this because they see demand from their largest customers—the enterprises that are furthest along in AI deployment. If you’re behind the curve on AI governance, you’re increasingly in the minority.
Enterprise-grade governance is becoming table stakes. Two years ago, AI governance was a differentiator. Organizations that had it were ahead. Today, it’s moving toward baseline expectation. The question is shifting from “Do you have AI governance?” to “How mature is your AI governance?” Organizations without any governance infrastructure will increasingly struggle to pass security reviews, satisfy regulators, and win enterprise deals.
You don’t need $8 billion to get started. ServiceNow is building for a world where they’re the governance layer for their entire customer base. Your organization has different needs. You need visibility into what AI is doing, measurement of what value it’s delivering, and controls that scale with your risk profile. That doesn’t require a platform acquisition strategy—it requires the right tools applied to your specific environment.
The Vendor-Neutral Alternative
Olakai was built on the same insight that’s driving ServiceNow’s acquisition strategy: enterprises need unified visibility, governance, and ROI measurement across their AI deployments. The difference is in how we deliver it.
Rather than locking customers into a single platform, Olakai provides a vendor-neutral control plane that works across AI tools, models, and infrastructure. We integrate with whatever AI systems you’re using—whether that’s chatbots from one vendor, copilots from another, and agent frameworks from a third. The goal is the same governance visibility and ROI measurement that ServiceNow is assembling through acquisitions, without requiring you to commit to their ecosystem.
This matters because most enterprises don’t have a single-vendor AI environment, and they’re unlikely to in the foreseeable future. Different teams have different needs. Different use cases have different requirements. A governance layer that only works within one platform leaves gaps that shadow AI will fill.
Looking Ahead
The ServiceNow acquisition spree marks a turning point. AI governance has moved from emerging concern to validated market category, with billions of dollars of M&A activity confirming its importance.
For enterprise leaders, the message is clear. The organizations that figure out AI governance in 2026 will have a significant advantage over those that don’t. They’ll scale AI programs faster because they can prove value and manage risk. They’ll win more enterprise deals because they can satisfy security and compliance requirements. They’ll retain talent because they can offer AI tools with appropriate guardrails rather than blanket prohibitions.
ServiceNow is betting that AI governance will be non-negotiable for enterprises that want to scale AI. Based on what we’re seeing in the market, that bet looks correct.
The only question is whether you’ll build that governance capability before your competitors do.
The market has validated AI governance. Schedule a demo to see how Olakai delivers it without platform lock-in.