ServiceNow can't seem to keep its wallet closed, snaps up small AI analytics company
News of the deal came about two weeks after CEO Bill McDermott swore off any “large scale” M&A this year. A spokesperson called this deal a “tuck in.”
Despite its CEO's insistence that it wasn't doing any "large scale" deals soon, ServiceNow has acquired yet another company. This time, the software firm has scooped up Pyramid Analytics, an Israeli corporation with data science and preparation expertise. The goal is to build additional context and semantics into its software stack.
“Pyramid adds an analytics and semantic layer that can define metrics in a way that both humans and AI agents can rely on,” Forrester VP and Principal Analyst Charles Betz told The Register Friday. “Natural‑language querying is one expression of that, but the deeper value for customers is moving analytics closer to action — embedding trusted, shared meaning directly into workflows, suitable for agentic automation, rather than treating semantics as purely a design time problem and analytics as a downstream reporting use case.”
Grabbing Pyramid Analytics is the latest in a string of acquisitions that ServiceNow is using to build a software stack that goes from ingesting tickets and monitoring workflows to using knowledge graphs to understand the what and why behind objects that appear in a customers' CMDBs. The company’s purchase of Data.World and Veza are other examples of this direction.
“The most important signal is less about natural‑language query per se and more about semantics,” Betz said.
ServiceNow said that when Pyramid Analytics’ capabilities are brought into the fold, customers will be able to turn its dashboards that display information into action within the system.
“For example, AI-driven insights can automatically surface an issue, open and route a case, recommend the next best actions, and drive resolution across IT and the business — all in one connected workflow,” wrote Guarav Rewari, general manager and senior vice president of data analytics in a blog that announced the deal.
Pyramid will provide “canonical” definitions for a business which will allow humans and AI agents to take more confident action on business decisions across the customer’s IT estate, Rewarit wrote. He said it lets ServiceNow break out of the domain-specific use cases and connect to data outside of ServiceNow’s traditional remit.
“We’ll use Pyramid Analytics to deliver high-value solutions across IT, HR, supply chain, and other areas, combining data connectivity, AI-powered queries, workflow automation, and trusted governance,” Rewari wrote.
News of the acquisition came about two weeks after company CEO Bill McDermott told investors the company had no more “large scale” M&A deals planned during the company’s fourth quarter earnings call.
“And as it relates to future M&A, we do not have a large-scale M&A on the road map," he said. “What happened, and I felt for you all, we had Moveworks. It took 9 months to close. We no sooner closed Moveworks … and then had Armis and Veza come to you within like a few days. So probably, it was a little bit what's going on over there at ServiceNow? And I noticed that we lost about $10 billion in market cap on that because of the worry. So now the worry is gone, you can give us back to market cap.”
Since that Jan. 28 call, ServiceNow’s share price has dropped an additional 8.27 percent.
Financial details of the Pyramid Analytics transaction were not disclosed. A ServiceNow spokesperson told The Register that this purchase was not material to financial results and described it as a “tuck-in.”
“Pyramid is a smaller, strategic tuck-in that strengthens our data and analytics capabilities,” the spokesperson said. “It is not material to our business.”
Betz said that, while the “optics are not the best,” when McDermott made those comments the deal was likely almost closed.
“I took Bill McDermott’s comments as aimed at very large, balance‑sheet‑shaping transactions,” Betz told The Register. “Pyramid appears materially smaller than deals like Armis, more targeted rather than a broad portfolio bet. In that sense, it’s consistent with a strategy of filling specific gaps rather than pursuing transformational M&A. Also, timing. Bill said that just a few weeks back; the Pyramid deal was presumably way too far done to reverse.” ®