---
title: \(Legacy\) Building and deploying Virtual Agent for NLU
description: Convert the time your agents and technicians spend handling low-impact user requests into an intelligently managed interaction. Enable Virtual Agent with NLU to understand the intent of what people are looking for and provide them with more relevant answers.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/conversational-interfaces/using-virtual-agent-nlu.html
release: brazil
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-09-10"
reading_time_minutes: 2
breadcrumb: [\(Legacy\) Virtual Agent for NLU, Conversational Interfaces]
---

# \(Legacy\) Building and deploying Virtual Agent for NLU

Convert the time your agents and technicians spend handling low-impact user requests into an intelligently managed interaction. Enable Virtual Agent with NLU to understand the intent of what people are looking for and provide them with more relevant answers.

Starting with the Brazil release, Virtual Agent for NLU and Virtual Agent Lite are being prepared for future deprecation. It will be hidden and no longer activated on new instances but will continue to be supported. For details, see the [Deprecation Process \[KB0867184\]](https://support.servicenow.com/kb_view.do?sysparm_article=KB0867184) article in the Now Support Knowledge Base. For migration guidance, see [KB3159779: Virtual Agent NLU and Keyword Feature Deprecation Migration Guide](https://support.servicenow.com/kb?id=kb_article_view&sysparm_article=KB3159779).

You can quickly deploy AI‑powered chatbot conversations using customizable templates for the most common enterprise IT, HR, and customer service scenarios. You can design, build, and test conversations with Virtual Agent Designer.

-   **[\(Legacy\) Getting started with Virtual Agent Designer for NLU](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/conversation-designer-virtual-agent-nlu.md)**  
The Virtual Agent Designer is a diagram tool for creating and managing assets, which are blueprints for conversations between a Virtual Agent and a user. You can design topics that help your users resolve common work issues or guide them through self-service tasks.
-   **[\(Legacy\) Designing a Virtual Agent NLU topic](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/design-va-topic-nlu.md)**  
Walk through the design of an example Virtual Agent topic that enables users to view incidents they submitted. The example highlights various design controls that can be used to build the conversation flow.
-   **[\(Legacy\) Creating a Virtual Agent NLU topic](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/create-virtual-agent-topic-nlu.md)**  
Use Virtual Agent Designer to create and modify Virtual Agent topics \(conversations\). Build your topic to meet a specific objective or goal, such as fulfilling a user's request or helping a user complete a task.
-   **[\(Legacy\) Testing NLU/Keyword topics](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/va-designer-testing.md)**  
Use the chat test window to preview, test, and debug Natural Language Understanding \(NLU\)/keyword topics.
-   **[\(Legacy\) Exploring other Virtual Agent for NLU features](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/exploring-other-vad-features-nlu.md)**  
After creating topics with the basic Virtual Agent Designer controls and scripting, you can also enhance conversation functionality and topic maintenance by using additional Virtual Agent features.
-   **[\(Legacy\) Using NLU Virtual Agent with a live agent](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/using-va-agent-chat-nlu.md)**  
Sometimes a conversation requires human intervention. When this occurs, you can transfer the user to a live agent in Agent Chat.
-   **[\(Legacy\) Localization options for Virtual Agent for NLU](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ServiceNow/ServiceNowDocs/brazil/markdown/conversational-interfaces/multi-language-options-va.md)**  
The ServiceNow platform provides several methods for serving your international Virtual Agent users, regardless of their language and locale. Professionally localize your conversations, use dynamic machine translation, or a combination of the two.