ServiceNow's Action Fabric Tolls Outside AI Agents — JPMorgan Calls It 'A Tax' on Third-Party Agents

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At Knowledge 2026, ServiceNow launched Action Fabric, a layer every external AI agent must pass through to read data or execute workflows inside the ServiceNow platform, metered on action-based pricing. JPMorgan analyst Mark Murphy described it as effectively a tax on customers using outside AI agents to touch data they already store in ServiceNow, with Anthropic's Claude (via a Claude Cowork connector) as launch partner and an MCP Server included in every Now Assist/AI Native SKU. The move shows incumbents defending their workflow moat by charging rent at the agent gateway rather than competing agent-for-agent.