ServiceNow’s Acquisition of Qlue

The Spark in the Conversation: What We Can Learn from ServiceNow’s Acquisition of Qlue

By a Builder, For Builders – A Series on What Past ServiceNow Acquisitions Teach Us About Innovation

In the spring of 2017, ServiceNow quietly made a move that would later become foundational to its journey into AI-powered service experiences: it acquired a small startup called Qlue for $6.6 million.

To many, this may have looked like a footnote. But for those of us who build things, especially in the enterprise space, it was anything but.

Qlue didn’t just build bots. It built conversations. And more than that, it built the idea that those conversations, once trapped in static FAQs, clunky portals, and long wait times, could finally flow.

Why Qlue Mattered

Founded by Hasan Rizvi (a veteran from Oracle with a deep well of enterprise software experience) and Rahim Yaseen (who’d helped architect platforms at Oracle, SAP, and Couchbase), Qlue was born in 2014 out of a clear, growing frustration: why did enterprise software feel so impersonal, so transactional, so… slow?

In an era where consumers were already chatting with Siri and Alexa, enterprise users were still submitting tickets like it was 1999.

Qlue set out to change that by building AI-powered virtual agents for the enterprise. Bots that didn’t just respond with static answers, but could hold conversations, ask clarifying questions, route users intelligently, and get work done. Think: asking HR about your parental leave policy, checking your order status with customer service, or diagnosing an IT issue, without ever opening a ticket.

They weren’t building novelty. They were building relief, at scale.

The Builders Behind It

What makes Qlue even more interesting to reflect on today is the caliber of builders it brought together. These weren’t first-timers. Hasan Rizvi had scaled major technology groups at Oracle. Rahim Yaseen had crisscrossed the enterprise stack from Siebel to Couchbase. Michael Fortson-Dillon, Qlue’s Director of Mobile, would go on to lead major product efforts at ServiceNow post-acquisition. Amit Jusuja, who helped operationalize Qlue, had shaped Java and IoT platforms. And Ken Laversin, Qlue’s sales advisor, later led GTM at AI unicorns like C3.ai and Skyflow.

This wasn’t a random crew; it was a dream team of seasoned enterprise technologists who saw the future before it arrived.

The Acquisition That Planted Seeds

ServiceNow wasn’t looking for flash. It was looking for fit.

Qlue’s tech would become the bedrock for ServiceNow’s Virtual Agent, integrated into IT, HR, Customer Service, and more. What started as a way to answer common questions turned into a multi-billion-dollar category of AI-driven workflows, accelerated by real conversations between humans and machines.

Even more importantly, the Qlue acquisition represented a strategic thesis that’s shaped every AI initiative since: automation is only powerful when it feels human.

This wasn’t just about reducing ticket volumes. It was about reimagining what it felt like to get help at work.

Lessons for Builders

Reflecting on Qlue today, several lessons emerge, especially for those of us building the next generation of tools in AI, enterprise, and beyond:

• Start with the pain, not the tech. Qlue wasn’t chasing a chatbot trend. It was solving a clear, high-friction pain: enterprise interactions were slow and impersonal. It didn’t build for buzzwords, it built for needs.

• Bet on small, sharp teams. For all the headlines about mega-acquisitions, it’s often the nimble, focused teams that reshape platforms. Qlue had the right mix of experience and humility to plug into a larger vision.

• Human-centered AI wins. Qlue succeeded not because it was the smartest AI, but because it was the most empathetic. It understood that in the enterprise, clarity and speed are forms of respect.

• The right acquirer matters. ServiceNow didn’t just buy Qlue and bury it. It amplified it. It gave Qlue’s ideas a canvas, one that reached tens of millions of users.

Final Thought

Every builder dreams of creating something lasting. Qlue didn’t become a household name, but it did become a foundational layer in a platform that millions now depend on to get work done faster.

And that’s a kind of legacy worth chasing, not for the headlines, but for the users quietly saying thank you every time the chatbot just works.

So here’s to the quiet revolutions, the little startups with big hearts, and to the builders bold enough to see the future not as a pitch deck, but as a conversation worth having.