Key Points
Jensen Huang's vision of AI agents everywhere aligns perfectly with ServiceNow's core business model.
ServiceNow's stock has been dragged down by the SaaS sell-off, but its plummet is undeserved.
Investors are afraid of AI disrupting SaaS companies, but ServiceNow's platform enables AI business disruption.
Years ago, E.F. Hutton ran a commercial that proclaimed, "When E.F. Hutton speaks, people listen." We could perhaps replace E.F. Hutton with Jensen Huang in that statement today. When the Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) CEO speaks, people listen. And Huang spoke at length at his company's 2026 GTC AI conference last week.
Unsurprisingly, Huang's remarks gave Nvidia shareholders reasons for optimism about the future. However, he also delivered fantastic news for a beaten-down AI stock -- ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW).
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
The massive sell-off of SaaS stocks has dragged ServiceNow's shares down nearly 30% year to date. Huang, though, painted a picture of a bright future for the AI workflow platform company.
Agents of change
In his keynote address, Huang highlighted several companies working closely with Nvidia. He specifically recognized ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott and his team. However, that shout-out wasn't the best news for ServiceNow investors.
Huang spoke extensively about the promise of agentic AI. He predicted a future where 10 billion digital AI agents work side-by-side with human knowledge workers. Huang said that "AI agents will be everywhere." This vision aligns perfectly with ServiceNow's core business model.
Nvidia is enabling AI reasoning models to be integrated into any organization's agentic AI framework, according to Huang. The GPU maker's technology (called NIMs, for Nvidia Inference Microservices) will help ServiceNow rapidly develop and scale enterprise AI agents for its platform. As a result, ServiceNow's products should be even stickier for the company's clients.
In addition, Nvidia is essentially reinventing the enterprise computing stack by creating a new AI infrastructure for enterprise. New features include semantic-based storage systems and workstations built from the ground up to support agentic AI. This new infrastructure should help ensure that the necessary computing power is available to run ServiceNow's most advanced applications.
Image source: Getty Images.
An undeserved plummet
A few weeks ago, Huang was asked about the SaaS stock sell-off in an interview with CNBC. He stated, point-blank, "I think the market's got it wrong." One key reason behind his view was the potential of agentic AI. Huang explained, "These agents have to be experts in what they do, and nobody's going to understand customer service better than ServiceNow."
I agree with Nvidia's CEO on this 100%. Sure, AI will disrupt some SaaS companies' business models. However, I don't believe that organizations will easily replicate ServiceNow's long history of modeling business processes, integrating with third-party systems, and extensive security compliance.
ServiceNow's McDermott hit the nail on the head with his comments in the company's fourth-quarter conference call. He said, "AI doesn't replace enterprise orchestration. It depends on it. It depends on governance. It depends on scale." McDermott is right, in my view.
Huang told CNBC that he expects the use of tools such as those marketed by ServiceNow will increase as AI proliferates. He predicted that AI agents will use tools more, rather than less, especially as software developers incorporate expert AI agents that run natively on their platforms.
Two great AI picks-and-shovels plays.
Like many investors, I view Nvidia as one of the best picks-and-shovels plays for profiting from the AI boom. The company's GPUs are critical for powering AI model training and inference.
However, I also think that ServiceNow is a great AI picks-and-shovels stock. The company is positioning its platform as an indispensable component for enterprises. McDermott stated in ServiceNow's Q4 update, "We are building the AI control tower for business reinvention so enterprises can operate securely in an agentic AI world."
Some investors have dumped ServiceNow stock amid fears of AI disruption. The reality is, though, that ServiceNow offers the leading platform enabling AI disruption in businesses. If you're willing to ignore the noise, buying this beaten-down AI stock could pay off handsomely over the next few years.
Keith Speights has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia and ServiceNow. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.