ServiceNow's John Phillips: Stop Measuring AI Adoption, Measure Work Outcomes
On You Should Know, ServiceNow's John Phillips argues AI adoption is being tracked all wrong. Hosts Ryan Leary and William Tincup dig into fragmented AI stacks, the employee value exchange, and why discretionary effort, not survey scores, defines real engagement.
Arlington, TX (Newsworthy.ai) Tuesday Aug 25, 2026 @ 3:30 PM CDT
Wiilliam TIncup
“We're going to quickly stop talking about AI adoption as tool usage, and we're going to start looking at the outcomes and jobs to be done. Are they being fulfilled? Is your work being fulfilled with AI as a companion or actually as the entire outcome?”
The August 24, 2026 episode of You Should Know, hosted by Ryan Leary and William Tincup, welcomes John Phillips, Group Vice President of Employee Experience at ServiceNow, for a candid conversation about why AI adoption is being measured the wrong way. Phillips argues that counting tool usage misses the point entirely. What matters is whether jobs get done faster, with less friction, and with better outcomes for both the employee and the business. The discussion lands as CHROs face growing pressure to prove AI productivity gains across increasingly fragmented technology stacks.
Across roughly an hour, the conversation moves through several distinct threads pulled directly from Phillips' work leading ServiceNow's employee workflows business:
Wiilliam TIncup
“We're going to quickly stop talking about AI adoption as tool usage, and we're going to start looking at the outcomes and jobs to be done. Are they being fulfilled? Is your work being fulfilled with AI as a companion or actually as the entire outcome?”
- Why the current AI landscape is a train wreck of productivity caused by every system of record shipping its own agent.
- The two-sided value exchange between employee and employer, and what happens to the 23 hours a tool claims to save you.
- Discretionary effort versus engagement surveys, and why hyper-personalization beats one-size-fits-all pulse data.
- The pre-COVID versus post-COVID collapse of work boundaries, burnout, and the am I enough internal dialogue.
- ServiceNow's AI control tower vision as an agentic overlay that stitches together 15 LLMs and 100 systems.
Phillips is blunt about where the industry sits today. Every system of record is now got their little AI agent and it's creating chaos for these practitioners, he tells the hosts. We're watching this like train wreck of productivity. On measurement, he predicts a fast pivot: We're going to quickly stop talking about AI adoption as tool usage, and we're going to start looking at the outcomes and jobs to be done. On human performance, he adds a line that resonates with both hosts: High performance has both extreme focus and extreme recovery. It's in any environment, the highest performers in the world have those things.
The episode digs into ServiceNow's approach of layering an agentic companion across existing systems rather than ripping and replacing them. Phillips describes customers arriving with eight purchased AI tools plus one they built themselves, none of which talk to each other. He connects this to a broader philosophy shaped by time spent in refugee camps, arguing that skills and talent is universal and opportunity is not. Tincup revisits his long-standing critique of engagement surveys, pushing Phillips on whether discretionary effort is the truer metric, while Leary shares a personal saga of applying to Home Depot and never receiving so much as an acknowledgment email.
About You Should Know
You Should Know, part of the WRKdefined Podcast Network based in Arlington, Texas, is co-hosted by Ryan Leary and William Tincup. The show tackles pivotal leadership challenges shaping the modern workplace, from AI and workforce dynamics to career mobility and hiring technology. With more than 3.9 million verified monthly listeners, it delivers unfiltered conversations for people invested in the evolving world of work. The episode with John Phillips of ServiceNow is available now wherever podcasts are heard.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Why does John Phillips believe AI adoption is being measured the wrong way?
- Phillips argues that counting tool usage tells you nothing about whether work is actually improving. He predicts the industry will quickly shift to measuring outcomes and jobs to be done, asking whether work is being fulfilled with AI as a companion or as the entire outcome. Inputs like seat counts and logins simply make fragmentation worse when every system ships its own agent.
- What is the two-sided value exchange Phillips describes?
- Phillips reframes employee experience as a marketplace requiring value for both sides. If a tool saves an employee 23 hours, that time does not have to flow back to the company. It might be dinner with the kids or a Super Bowl party, and the company still wins through higher retention, better performance, and longer consistent output from that person.
- How does Phillips distinguish discretionary effort from engagement surveys?
- Responding to Tincup's critique, Phillips agrees surveys are a blunt communication channel but says data sophistication now allows hyper-personalized, persona-based understanding. For a top salesperson doubling a $4 million quota, engagement means removing administrative work so they can crush quota and take care of their family, not answering a generic pulse survey the company never acts on.
- What is ServiceNow's AI control tower approach?
- Phillips describes an agentic companion that sits across all systems rather than replacing them. Customers arrive having bought eight AI tools and built one more, none of which communicate. ServiceNow stitches together workflows, data, security, and up to 15 LLMs and 100 systems into a single overlay so employees can accomplish jobs to be done without hopping between applications.
- How did COVID change the employee experience according to Phillips?
- Phillips says COVID exposed an underlying fear and dissolved work boundaries. Some employees hid in virtual work while others, lacking intrinsic value outside the job, became obsessed and burned out at remarkable rates. He argues high performance requires both extreme focus and extreme recovery, and software should give employees the data to make better choices about where their value goes.
- Why does Phillips say job seekers should audit a company's tech stack?
- Because software is now a core part of the employee experience alongside managers and coworkers. Leary agrees he would vet stacks before joining, and Phillips warns that if onboarding forces you to file separate tickets across multiple disconnected systems, the company is already signaling a fragmented, low-value daily experience you may want to walk away from.
- What is Phillips' personal definition of work?
- Phillips defines work as an application of values and purpose, not a compartmentalized paycheck. Drawing on time spent in refugee camps, he notes that skills and talent are universal but opportunity is not. For him, work blends family, personal vision, and disruptive product building, and he rejects rigid career pathways tied to degrees or origins.
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