Why this product, why now?
Most AI governance tools sit on the side. AI Control Tower sits in the workflow.
Standalone AI governance platforms give you a dashboard. They don’t give you a kill switch tied to your incident process, an inventory that updates from your CMDB, or an audit trail that flows through to your existing GRC controls.
AI Control Tower is built into the Now Platform. The governance evidence regulators ask for lives in the same system as your change records, asset registry, incident workflow and risk register. Built to govern AI from any source: first-party, third-party, or agentic. Built to do it inside the operating model you already run.
THE CAPABILITIES
Five capabilities. One control plane.
AI Control Tower closes each of the five operational gaps Xcession sees with UK and Irish clients.
Automatic inventory of first-party and third-party AI, including AI deployed outside ServiceNow, across AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, SAP, Oracle and Workday.
Continuous metrics, drift detection, and observability into how an agent reasoned its way to a decision. Replaces periodic audits with live signal.
Least-privilege access for every AI identity. Prompt injection defence. When an agent goes off-script or beyond its permissions, real-time detection and shutdown.
Risk classification, conformity assessment workflow, human oversight controls and audit-ready documentation, mapped to EU AI Act, NIS2, ISO 42001 and NIST AI RMF.
ROI dashboards, cost tracking by AI system and business unit, runaway-spend alerting. The evidence your board is asking for, and that OBAIR will benchmark.
THE MAPPING
How the Xcession five gaps map to AI Control Tower
If you have used our Irish AI Governance Readiness Checklist or sat through one of our executive briefings, this table is the bridge from diagnostic to delivery.
| Discovery | Discover | A live inventory of every AI agent, model and embedded copilot — including AI services procured outside IT. The first answer regulators will ask for. |
| Security | Secure | Identity governance for AI agents, least-privilege enforcement, prompt-injection defence, and a real-time kill switch when an agent operates beyond its scope. |
| Governance & Compliance | Govern | Policy converted to operation: risk classification, conformity assessment, human oversight workflows, audit trails — directly mapped to EU AI Act articles, ISO 42001 clauses and NIST AI RMF functions. |
| Observability | Observe | Continuous monitoring of model drift, output quality, human-override rates and agent reasoning at runtime. Anomalies routed automatically into your existing incident process. |
| Value Measurement | Measure | Per-AI-system cost and ROI tracking. Productivity, automation and adoption KPIs your CFO and board will actually believe. |
IN DEPTH
What each capability does, in practical terms
Through more than 30 enterprise integrations across AWS, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, SAP, Oracle and Workday, AI Control Tower inventories AI agents, models and MCP servers across the estate, including non-human identities and connected devices. Anchored by the ServiceNow CMDB and Context Engine, every AI asset is mapped to the services, people and processes it supports. Shadow AI becomes visible AI.
Continuous monitoring with live metrics and alerts replaces the quarterly-review model that AI now moves too fast for. Through the Traceloop integration, AI Control Tower shows how agents are reasoning at runtime: where they make decisions, why, and when to course-correct. That turns an unmanaged AI estate into a governed one.
Identity access governance extends into hyperscaler AI environments and connected devices, through the Veza integration. Scoped permissions, least-privilege enforcement, and patented access-graph technology apply across every AI system, agent and identity. When an agent operates beyond its permissions, AI Control Tower detects it and shuts it down in real time. That matters more the more critical work agents take on.
Risk classification, conformity assessment workflow, transparency and human-oversight controls are built and tracked against the EU AI Act, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF and the policy frameworks your sector adds on top. When a regulator asks for evidence of operational AI governance, the evidence lives in the system, not in someone’s slide deck.
Cost and ROI dashboards track spend by AI system and by business unit, with alerting on runaway costs. Real-time performance and value metrics give the board the evidence they have been asking for since 2024, and the data OBAIR and equivalent bodies will start benchmarking publicly.
WHY XCESSION
The right-sized partner to put AI Control Tower into operation.
Xcession has been delivering on ServiceNow since 2018, across UK financial services, public sector, healthcare, legal and industrial clients. We recommend AI Control Tower for this objective because it is the most operationally complete answer to the question. It puts AI governance into the operating model your organisation already runs.
01
Senior on every engagement
Senior consultants on the ground from day one. The people who scoped the work are the people who deliver it.
02
Governance-first by design
EmpowerAI, our agentic AI programme, is built on guardrails and controls. AI Control Tower is how that approach shows up in the platform.
03
UK and Ireland on the ground
Operating in the live European regulatory context: AI Office of Ireland, NCSC, EU AI Act, NIS2. Not adapting US playbooks to it.
04
Months, not years
Readiness review in two weeks. First production capability inside three months. A scaling roadmap your board signs off on quarterly.
YOUR DELIVERY PATH
From readiness to scaled operation in four steps.
| Readiness Review | 2 weeks | Five-gap assessment, prioritised roadmap, target operating model outline, board-ready evidence framework. Mapped to EU AI Act, NIS2, ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF. |
| Foundations | 6-10 weeks | AI Control Tower stood up on your existing ServiceNow platform. Discover integrations live (AWS / Azure / Google Cloud / SAP / Microsoft 365). Governance roles, policies and risk classifications loaded. First AI inventory complete. |
| First Production | 3-6 months | Observe and Secure capabilities active across priority AI systems. Kill-switch tested. Live ROI tracking. Regulatory evidence flows operational. First quarterly governance report to the board, generated from the system not assembled by hand. |
| Scale & CoE | Ongoing | EmpowerAI Centre of Excellence model — continuously monitor, optimise and evolve the agent estate. Agent Development pipeline running under the same control plane. Adoption and assurance scale together. |
GO DEEPER
Read the broader argument, or take the diagnostic.
The full Xcession position on AI governance, the five gaps, and how Control Tower fits into the wider operating model. Read more.
Why a written policy is no longer enough - and what a working AI control plane actually looks like in 2026. Read more.
See what AI Control Tower looks like on your estate.
Two weeks. A five-gap diagnostic against your current AI footprint, run as a working session with the senior consultants who would deliver the work.