AI built into your FSM, or a specialist on top?
The short answer
Use the AI in your field service suite for what the suite already knows: briefs, summaries, record updates and scheduling. Add a specialist when the answer the technician needs is not in the suite, because it is in a manual, an old job or a colleague's memory. Most service organisations will end up with both.
- Salesforce Agentforce for Field Service: suite AI with a brief, troubleshooting and a summary.
- Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service: suite AI included in the licence.
- ServiceNow Field Service Management: suite AI with guidance, summaries and scheduling agents.
- Kenner: a specialist that builds a knowledge graph of your units, jobs, alarms, parts and manuals. Our product.
- Aquant: a specialist built from your manuals, service records and expert knowledge.
- Neuron7: a specialist layer inside the suite, built from your case history.
What suite AI is good at
It is already there, it already has permission to see your records, and it writes back to them without an integration. For the brief before the job and the summary after it, that is most of what you need.
It is also where scheduling and dispatch AI lives. None of the specialists in this guide describes doing that.
Where it stops
Suite AI answers from the suite. Read the vendor's own description of what the technician guidance is based on: several of the pages we checked do not say, and two describe features that stop at summaries and record updates.
The specialists are built the other way round. They start from the manuals, the old work orders and what experienced technicians know, connect that to each asset, and answer from it. Kenner calls the result a knowledge graph. Neuron7 describes a graph of past cases. Aquant describes capturing expert knowledge.
A specialist is also not confined to the field service system. Kenner, which we make, connects to the CRM and ERP as well, so it can order the part and prepare the quote, and it reports what breaks across your units and which faults take longest to diagnose.
How to decide
Take ten recent jobs that went badly: callbacks, second visits, escalations. For each, ask where the information that would have prevented it was. If it was in the work order history in your suite, the suite's AI will find it. If it was somewhere else, that is the case for a specialist.
The tools side by side
| Tool | Type | Answers from | How technicians use it | Writes the job report | Published price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salesforce Agentforce for Field Service | Built into the field service suite | Your Salesforce data: service history, assets and knowledge base, with manuals, similar repairs and sensor data for troubleshooting | Inside the Salesforce Field Service mobile app, by chat or voice. It can read photos | Yes. Drafts the post-work summary and the pre-work brief in Salesforce | $125 per user per month, on top of Field Service licences pricing page |
| Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service | Built into the field service suite | The work orders, bookings and activities stored in Dynamics 365 Field Service | The Copilot button in the Field Service mobile app, by text or speech, and a side pane on the web | Yes. Work order summaries, and work order updates by voice or text (in preview) | Included in the $105 per user per month Field Service licence pricing page |
| ServiceNow Field Service Management | Built into the field service suite | ServiceNow data: assets, service history, work history and job details | ServiceNow's mobile experience, with an AI chat and voice prompts | Yes. Summaries and notes, work orders from text and images, forms filled from photos | Not published. Two packages, by custom quote pricing page |
| Kenner | Assistant on a knowledge graph of your own systems | Your company's own knowledge base, which Kenner builds: units, past jobs, alarms, parts and manuals from all your systems, linked in a knowledge graph | A normal phone call, or WhatsApp, iMessage, Teams or RCS. No new app | Yes. From a voice note, written back to your FSM, ERP or CRM | Free while in beta, starting with a two-week pilot for 5 to 10 technicians. Prices after the beta are not published |
| Aquant | Specialist troubleshooting platform | Your manuals, service records and service history, plus expert knowledge Aquant captures | A voice call, SMS, web or an embedded view, with the phone camera for visual guidance. No app required | Yes. Documents the repair and updates the service record | Not published. A free trial sign-up is offered |
| Neuron7 | Specialist troubleshooting layer | A graph built from your manuals, case history, tickets and technician notes | Inside the CRM or field service system technicians already use, including on a phone, and in Microsoft Teams | Not stated. It records which steps worked and learns from them | Not published. Sold as a service priced by deployment scope |
Each tool has a full entry, with sources, in the main guide.
Questions and answers
Can we use both?
Yes, and many will. The specialists in this guide are built to sit on top of a field service system, not to replace it.
Is a specialist harder to roll out?
It needs a connection to your systems, which the suite's own AI does not. Kenner describes connecting in the first week and running a two-week pilot with five to ten technicians. Ask any specialist how long it takes before technicians get a useful answer.
Checked against
- Salesforce Agentforce for Field Service: Salesforce Field Service, Agentforce for Field Service pricing, Agentforce for Field Service announcement
- Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service: Copilot in Dynamics 365 Field Service overview, Work order update with Copilot, Dynamics 365 Field Service pricing
- ServiceNow Field Service Management: ServiceNow Field Service Management, ServiceNow FSM pricing, ServiceNow Otto
- Kenner: getkenner.com
- Aquant: Aquant for field technicians, Aquant channels, Aquant conversational AI for field service
- Neuron7: Neuron7, Neuron7 on field service AI