Agentic Index
Celonis vs ServiceNow (2026)
Celonis last verified ·ServiceNow last verified
Both claim to know how your enterprise actually works and they learned it differently. That verdict is the Agentic Index coverage score, graded from each vendor's own published materials.
ServiceNow knows the processes it owns because they run as records inside it, and Now Assist agents act on them. Celonis knows processes by mining them from the systems where they really happen, and its AgentC suite plus the Celonis Context Model gives agents that business context to analyze, design and operate processes. ServiceNow sees the process it defined, and Celonis sees the process as executed, including all the parts that go around the official one.
This comparison is published by Agentic Index, an independent agentic AI vendor research platform. Celonis and ServiceNow are each graded against the same 14 capability Agentic Index taxonomy, from the vendor's own public materials under the Agentic Index verification standard, alongside 1,084 researched vendors. No vendor pays for placement and no vendor has reviewed this page. How this evidence is graded
Choose Celonis if
- The gap between your documented process and your real one is the problem.
- Process mining evidence is what you need before automating anything.
- Agents that understand context from execution data, not from a workflow definition.
Choose ServiceNow if
- Your processes already live in ServiceNow, where AI Agent Studio agents act on them with long term memory.
- Acting on the record rather than analyzing it is what you need now.
- IT and employee workflows are the immediate scope.
| Feature | C Celonis |
S ServiceNow |
|---|---|---|
| Action & orchestration | ||
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Integrations & Tool Calling Ability to connect agents to real systems through native integrations, OAuth-authenticated actions, custom tools, APIs, webhooks, or MCP-compatible tools. |
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CelonisIntegrations & Tool Calling Data comes in from any source, and actions land in connected systems. The Data Core extracts data from any source and queries billions of records at speed, and the Context Model is system agnostic, built from data across systems, applications, devices and interactions, with a Marketplace in the platform navigation. Celonis ingests data from SAP and Oracle, runs action flows that execute in third party systems, and offers a Celonis MCP Server that exposes process tools to agents. Its integrations that feed process context to agents built in Copilot Studio, watsonx Orchestrate and Bedrock are Celonis integrations, not capabilities of those platforms. The connector catalog and action flow reference require a login, and no connector count is published. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, home; July first-party blog and press read; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowIntegrations & Tool Calling Agents act through tools added in the guided setup, such as catalog items, and reach outside systems as an MCP client through Action Fabric, which ServiceNow describes as MCP server, MCP client and A2A together, with A2A used to orchestrate multiple systems and processes. Sourceservicenow.com/platform/action-fabric.htmlread 2026-09-18 |
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Workflow Orchestration Ability to sequence, branch, retry, route, and combine deterministic workflow nodes with autonomous agent steps. |
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CelonisWorkflow Orchestration AI driven processes on the platform combine agents, people and systems, and customers compose them in the Build Experience, where they analyze, design and operate composable, AI-driven business processes and build and run strategic, operational, business-critical solutions. Design defines workflows, outcomes, guardrails and best practices, and Operate orchestrates AI to work alongside people and systems while monitoring adherence. The acquired Orchestration Engine handles end to end process workflows, and action flows execute the steps. Branching, retry and versioning specifics are not public. Sourcecelonis.com/platform; July first-party blog and press read; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowWorkflow Orchestration The Autonomous Workforce deploys AI specialists that do whole jobs and orchestrate teams of AI agents to deliver outcomes from start to finish. Action Fabric uses the A2A protocol for complex multi agent workflows across systems and processes. Sourceservicenow.com/products/ai-agents.htmlread 2026-09-18 |
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Triggers & Channel Coverage How agents wake up and where they work: schedules, webhooks, message events, CRM events, inbox events, chat, email, voice, and collaboration tools. |
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CelonisTriggers & Channel Coverage Work reaches Celonis agents from process events, without a person asking. Agents act on process events, for example identifying orders ready for scheduling, and execute action flows against connected systems. The Context Model mines new processes and agents as they execute in real time, and Operate orchestrates AI alongside people and systems. Channels such as Teams and Microsoft 365 belong to partner surfaces. The trigger catalog itself sits behind a login. Sourcecelonis.com/blog AgentC post (read 8 July 2026); celonis.com/platform; datedread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowTriggers & Channel Coverage In the guided setup, an administrator adds triggers that run the AI agent automatically when certain conditions are met, so the agent starts when an event occurs rather than only in chat. Agents also work conversationally through the ServiceNow Otto panel and Virtual Agent. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/add-trigger-aia.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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| Knowledge & context | ||
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Knowledge Grounding & RAG Ability to ground agent behavior in company data through document ingestion, retrieval, external knowledge APIs, semantic search, or RAG layers. |
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CelonisKnowledge Grounding & RAG Agents ground on the Celonis Context Model (formerly the Process Intelligence Graph), a continuously refreshed model of the customer's business. It is a dynamic, system-agnostic, real-time representation of the entire business, built on process data and business knowledge from across systems, applications, devices and interactions, and it determines root causes, generates predictions and recommendations and evaluates what-if scenarios. It keeps improving, mining new processes and agents as they execute, so AI agents have the operational clarity to reason correctly, in Celonis's words. Beneath it, the Data Core extracts data from any source and queries billions of records. Knowledge enters by ingestion, not retraining. Permissions per source and citation behavior are not public. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, /solutions/ai, home; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowKnowledge Grounding & RAG When an AI agent is set up, tools and the customer's own information are added to it, including Knowledge Graphs that give the agent the relationships between real world entities to improve its outputs, for example a Knowledge Graph added to an approval agent. New knowledge is added this way, without retraining the model. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/add-tool-aia.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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Memory & State Persistence Ability to persist context across a run, conversation, workflow, user, team, or longer-term memory layer. |
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CelonisMemory & State Persistence Whether Celonis agents keep memory is not settled. The Context Model persists a digital twin of the business with agent outcomes written back, but that is the business record, not agent memory. Celonis calls it continuously improving, mining new processes and agents as they execute and learning from how people and agents interact in real time. That is adaptation at the platform level, with no memory scope, lifetime or review surface for an individual agent. The product documentation requires a login, and nothing public describes session or long term memory for the AI Assistant Builder or its agents. Sourcedocs.celonis.com (login-gated); celonis.com/platform; triedread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowMemory & State Persistence AI agents keep a long term memory of user specific facts and preferences. When an agent runs, an LLM checks the interaction for facts that match the agent's configured memory categories and stores them as semantic memory records in the AI Agent Memories table, scoped to the user and category and kept apart from business data. Categories such as software preferences, workplace context and communication style are defined globally and mapped to individual agents, and agents can also learn from the outcomes of past executions. Administrators decide whether agents may retain user information, apply it in conversations or learn from past runs, and the stored facts can be viewed by user and agent. How long memories are kept, and how one user's memories are deleted, is not stated. Sourceservicenow.com/docs long term memory categories and set up long term memoryread 2026-10-25 |
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| Control & trust | ||
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Human Oversight & Guardrails Approval steps, consent checkpoints, escalation rules, structured guardrails, policy constraints, and pause/resume controls. |
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CelonisHuman Oversight & Guardrails Customers define guardrails, but Celonis offers no approval step. Design redesigns operations to integrate enterprise AI and defines workflows, outcomes, guardrails and best practices, and Operate orchestrates AI to work alongside people and systems while monitoring adherence. Where an approval would sit (node, workflow or policy layer), and whether autonomy can vary by risk, is not published. Governance planes in partner platforms, such as Microsoft's Agent 365, belong to those partners. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, /solutions/ai; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowHuman Oversight & Guardrails Each tool an AI agent uses can be set to run in supervised execution mode, chosen as the execution mode when the tool is added in the guided setup, so a person oversees the tool's actions and the potential impact of an agent not executing as expected is contained, while other tools run autonomously. The mode is set per tool, so low risk and high risk actions can run under different levels of autonomy, and AI Agent Studio also sets guardrails on each agent. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/add-tool-aia.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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Security, Identity & Governance RBAC, SSO, auditability, encryption, least-privilege tool access, compliance posture, and data handling policy. |
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CelonisSecurity, Identity & Governance Celonis's trust portal (hosted on SafeBase) lists ISO/IEC 27001 with a Statement of Applicability, ISO/IEC 27701, ISO 9001:2015, SOC 1, SOC 2, the CSA STAR registry, TISAX, Cyber Essentials and Cyber Essentials Plus, plus GDPR and HIPAA positions, with documents available on request and a SOC 2 report featured. Its product security section lists SSO and SAML, role based access and team management, alongside penetration testing and a subprocessor list. The portal's detail pages and reports are available only with access, and the product documentation sits behind a login. Governance planes in partner platforms, such as Microsoft Agent 365 and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, are not Celonis's own controls. Sourcetrust.celonis.com; celonis.com/legal/trust-center; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowSecurity, Identity & Governance ServiceNow's Trust and Compliance Center lists FedRAMP authorization for its Government Community Cloud. Platform controls include SAML 2.0 single sign on, including SSO across multiple providers, role based multi factor authentication and access control, and agents run as dedicated service accounts with scoped roles. Sourceservicenow.com/company/trust.htmlread 2026-09-18 |
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Observability & Auditability Traces, logs, execution histories, metrics, audit events, and debugging detail for production agent behavior. |
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CelonisObservability & Auditability Celonis monitors agent activity inside the process record. Operate continuously monitors process performance, adherence and agent activity and orchestrates AI to work alongside people and systems, and the Context Model mines new processes and agents as they execute, learning from how people and agents interact in real time. Each executed step is mined into the process record as it happens. There is no public per run trace view, prompt log or tool call inspector. Tracing in AWS AgentCore and observation in Microsoft Agent 365 belong to those partners. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, home; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowObservability & Auditability Agent runs are recorded as sessions, traces and spans kept for analysis, and the customer sets the retention. Session, trace and span data is kept for 30 days by default, and a system administrator can shorten the window or stop retaining trace data for data minimization requirements, and choose whether the data stays available for analysis. AI agents using desktop actions also report each action they take back to the user in the ServiceNow Otto panel. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/mon-ai-configure-trace-retention.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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Deployment & Data Residency Deployment modes and options, including SaaS, dedicated cloud, VPC, on-prem, hybrid, local runtime, and self-hosting. |
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CelonisDeployment & Data Residency Delivery is cloud SaaS, and no hosting region, residency option or customer environment is published. The Data Core, Context Model and Build Experience run as a cloud platform, and on premises, hybrid and residency options are not detailed. The trust portal's public overview lists compliance frameworks and a subprocessor entry but no region choice, and its detail sections and the product documentation both require access. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, /solutions/ai; trust.celonis.com; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowDeployment & Data Residency ServiceNow offers a separate environment for regulated customers, the Government Community Cloud with FedRAMP, alongside its standard cloud, and customers that need a government authorized boundary run there. Sourceservicenow.com/company/trust.htmlread 2026-09-18 |
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| Solution readiness | ||
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Prebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Ready-made workflows, packaged employees, templates, blueprints, industry solutions, and role-specific agents that reduce time-to-value. |
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CelonisPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Packaged solutions and partner built agents are both available to adopt. A Marketplace sits in the platform, and the Build Experience ships strategic, operational and business critical solutions a customer runs. Through AgentC, customers can use agents pre built by partners such as Rollio and Hypatos, alongside Solution Suites and assistant templates in the AI Assistant Builder. Each works on its own when adopted. Sourcecelonis.com/platform; AgentC blog and press (read 8 July 2026); readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowPrebuilt Agents, Templates & Packs Buyers deploy out of the box AI agents or build their own, and ServiceNow names ready made agents across domains, such as change request planning, change template suggestion, supplier approval, asset evaluation and post incident review agents. Sourceservicenow.com/products/ai-agents.htmlread 2026-09-18 |
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| Platform extensibility | ||
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Model Flexibility & Routing Ability to work across multiple foundation models, route tasks to different models, or let buyers bring their own providers and keys. |
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CelonisModel Flexibility & Routing Whether Celonis customers choose a model is not settled. Celonis calls itself platform and model agnostic because agents built in Microsoft Copilot Studio, IBM watsonx Orchestrate and Amazon Bedrock Agents choose their own models, but that choice belongs to those platforms, not to Celonis. No model, provider, routing or selection surface is named for Celonis's own AI (the AI Assistant Builder), and the product documentation is behind a login. Sourcedocs.celonis.com (login-gated); celonis.com/platform, /solutions/ai; triedread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowModel Flexibility & Routing An administrator chooses the model provider for AI agents. In AI Agent Studio settings, the model provider tab leads to AI Admin Hub, where the default provider is selected from Now LLM Service, AWS Claude, Azure OpenAI and Google Gemini, and models can be tested in the skill kit before switching. ServiceNow notes that agents should be retested after the global model changes, and that in some regions using a different provider requires consent. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/select-aia-llm.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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APIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Composability layer: stable APIs, SDKs, MCP tool consumption/serving, custom tools, and integration into internal systems. |
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CelonisAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Agents built elsewhere can call Celonis. A Process Intelligence API opens the platform and a Celonis MCP Server exposes process tools to agents, and AgentC supplies tooling and integrations for building agents in third party platforms. Neither the API nor the MCP reference is public. Sourcecelonis.com/news/press AgentC release and /blog AgentC post (read 8 July 2026); docs.celonis.com login-gated; datedread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowAPIs, SDKs & MCP Extensibility Action Fabric lets any AI agent, including Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini, execute governed ServiceNow actions headlessly through MCP, A2A and traditional protocols. The MCP Server Console is a central control plane for exposing ServiceNow resources to external AI agents with native governance, and ServiceNow can also act as a secondary agent over A2A. Sourceservicenow.com/platform/action-fabric.htmlread 2026-09-18 |
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Testing, Debugging & Optimization Testing, debugging, scoring, retries, fallbacks, quality gates, and optimization loops for improving agent workflows before and after deployment. |
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CelonisTesting, Debugging & Optimization Processes can be simulated, but there is no way to test an agent's own behavior. Analyze lets customers run process simulations, predictions and what-if scenarios and find where to deploy AI, and Operate continuously monitors process performance, adherence and agent activity. Simulation tests the process and forecasts outcomes and does not score or compare what an agent does, and adherence monitoring after deployment watches operations and does not gate a change to the agent. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, /solutions/ai; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowTesting, Debugging & Optimization Agentic evaluations run AI agents and agentic workflows against defined datasets to verify quality before deployment. Each run scores performance, identifies issues and suggests optimizations, with custom metrics added through a parser tool and a results page for analysis. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/agentic-evals.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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| Specialist automation | ||
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Browser & Computer Use Browser, desktop, or remote/local computer control for workflows that cannot be handled through stable APIs alone. |
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CelonisBrowser & Computer Use The agents work through data and integrations, not screens. Celonis extracts data from source systems, holds it in the Data Core, reasons over the Context Model, and acts through action flows and integrated platforms. No agent operates a browser, a desktop session or another application's screens, and Celonis ships no bot or screen automation estate, so breakage when an interface changes is not a concern here. Sourcecelonis.com/platform, /solutions/ai, home; readread 2026-09-17 |
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ServiceNowBrowser & Computer Use With AI Desktop Actions, an agent triggered from the ServiceNow Otto panel performs tasks on an external website or web application, opening the site in a separate browser tab, carrying out the steps and reporting its actions back in the panel, through the ServiceNow Web Automation Chrome extension connected to the instance. Adaptive desktop actions handle interactions beyond custom UI, including triple-click, double-click, right-click, native prompts, dialogues and alerts, administrators configure the allowed websites, and the agent runs as a dedicated service account. Sourceraw.githubusercontent.com/servicenow/servicenowdocs/australia/markdown/intelligent-experiences/na-ai-wa-access-using-nap.mdread 2026-09-18 |
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Pricing snapshot
Sourced from the Index pricing dataset · open each vendor's profile for full detail.
| Pricing | C Celonis |
S ServiceNow |
|---|---|---|
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Entry price Lowest public entry point |
Contact sales. No prices, units or contract terms are published. | No public price. AI is included in every ServiceNow product, in tiers quoted through enterprise sales. |
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Pricing confidence How public the numbers are |
Contact only | Contact only |
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Billing Primary billing axis |
An enterprise platform subscription. The billing unit is not published. | Product and package subscriptions sold through enterprise sales, with AI included in each product and tiered from AI assistance to fully autonomous operations. |
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Variable cost Workload / overage exposure |
Medium variable cost | High variable cost |
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Free tier / trial Try before you buy |
No free tier
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No free tierTrial
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Buying motion Self-serve vs sales call |
Sales call | Sales call |
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Pricing verified When this pricing was last checked |
Product updates
Newest first, each linked to its source.
Celonis
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· Workflow orchestration
Celonis added Cloud Functions to its Orchestration Engine, so builders can call third party services or AI agents, and expanded its Agent Toolkit through MCP.
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· Integrations
Celonis expanded authentication options for Delta Sharing connections by adding OAuth (Client Credentials) support.
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· Security / enterprise
Celonis introduced the Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) security model, enabling customers to manage their own encryption keys for data at rest using their own Key Management System.
Source
ServiceNow
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· Security / enterprise
ServiceNow's August and September updates to AI Control Tower add an AI Asset Inventory with domain separation, integrations for governance and monitoring, and expanded oversight features.
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· Agent capability
ServiceNow introduced AI Specialists, a new agentic capability designed to autonomously handle end-to-end workflows such as incident resolution.
Source -
· Human approval / guardrails
ServiceNow rebranded Now Assist for Creator to ServiceNow Otto for Creator and introduced several updates to its Build Agent.
Source
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