Latest news with #ZohoCorp
Times of Oman
3 hours ago
- Business
- Times of Oman
Zoho Launches Zia LLM, and Expands AI Suite with Agents and Studio Tools
Zoho Corp., a leading global technology company, announced the launch of Zia LLM —the company's proprietary large language model, a no-code agent builder, Zia Agent Studio, over 25 deployable Zia agents, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to open up Zoho's vast library of actions to third-party agents. 'Today's announcement emphasises Zoho's longstanding aim to build foundational technology focused on protection of customer data, breadth and depth of capabilities because of the business context, and value," said Premanand Velumani, Associate Director, Strategic Growth Zoho MEA. "Our LLM model is trained specifically for business use cases, keeping privacy and governance at its core, which has resulted in lowering the inference cost, passing on that value to the customers, while also ensuring that they are able to utilise AI productively and efficiently." Zia LLM: Custom-Built AI for the Enterprise Zoho has successfully launched its own large language model, Zia LLM, built completely in-house by leveraging NVIDIA's AI accelerated computing platform. Trained with Zoho product use cases in mind—ranging from structured data extraction, summarisation, RAG, and code generation—Zia LLM comprises three models with 1.3 billion, 2.6 billion and 7 billion parameters, each separately trained and optimised for contextual applicability that benchmark competitively against comparable open source models in the market. The three models allow Zoho to always optimise the right model for the right user context, striking the balance between power and resource management. This focus on right-sizing the model is an ongoing development strategy for Zoho. In the short term, Zoho will scale Zia LLM's model sizes, starting with the first set of parameter increases by the end of 2025. While Zoho supports many LLM integrations for users, including ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek, Zia LLM continues Zoho's commitment to data privacy by allowing customers to keep their data on Zoho servers, leveraging the latest AI capabilities without sending their data to AI cloud providers. The model is currently testing for internal use cases across Zoho's broad app portfolio, and will be available for customer use in coming months. Zoho also announced two proprietary Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models for speech-to-text conversion for English and Hindi. Optimised to perform on a low computer load without compromising on accuracy, the models benchmark up to 75% better than comparable models across standard tests. Zoho will expand language support for ASR models to enable more inclusive AI adoption across diverse regions. It will also introduce a reasoning language model (RLM). Prebuilt Agents, Agent Studio and Marketplace Designed for Real-World Impact Zoho has developed a roster of AI agents contextually baked right into its products to enable immediate adoption of agentic technology. These agents can be used across various business activities, handling relevant actions based on the role of the user. These include Customer Service Agent for Zoho Desk that can process incoming customer requests, understand the context, and either answer directly or triage them to a human rep, providing an efficient first line of assistance. Ask Zia, Zoho's platform-wide conversational AI assistant, is bolstered with additional BI skills, tailored to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists, while supporting all users within an organisation. It can build end-to-end data pipelines for engineers, analyse data, create reports and dashboards in an interactive conversation mode for analysts, or help jump start building ML models for data scientists. First announced earlier in 2025, Zoho has further simplified the Zia Agent Studio experience to be fully prompt-based (with the option to use low-code) and includes ready-made access to over 700 actions across Zoho's products. Agents built by users can be deployed autonomously, triggered by button click, with rule-based automation, or even summoned within customer conversations. At the time of deployment, an agent can be provisioned as a digital employee, maintaining the user access permission structure defined within the organisation. Admins can perform behavioural audits as well as performance and impact analyses on digital employees, ensuring that every agent is working as effectively as possible and within clear guardrails. Several pre-built agents are now available for users, such as Candidate Screener, which identifies and ranks the most suitable candidates for a specific job opening based on role requirements, skills, experience, and other key attributes; Deal Analyser, which can analyse deals and provide insights such as win probability, next best action, and follow-up suggestions, and Revenue Growth Specialist, which suggests opportunities for upsell and cross-sell for existing customers. These agents are available in Agent Marketplace from where customers can easily deploy them. Ecosystem partners, ISVs, and individual developers will be able to create agents and host them on the Zia Agents Marketplace in coming months. The company plans to add more skills to Ask Zia, allowing it to act as an assistant to Finance teams, Customer Support teams to start with. Support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol will be implemented, allowing Zia Agents to interact and collaborate with each other, as well as collaborate with agents on other platforms. Interoperability and Governance Zoho's adoption of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) allows clients to securely access and interact with workflows and actions across over 15 Zoho applications. MCP is available in early access, and integrations via Zoho Flow extend its reach to third-party tools. Zoho Analytics now also supports a local MCP server, allowing for advanced contextual AI use cases while preserving data security and compliance.
Zawya
7 hours ago
- Business
- Zawya
Zoho launches Zia LLM, and expands AI suite with Agents and Studio Tools
Dubai –: Zoho Corp., a leading global technology company, announced the launch of Zia LLM —the company's proprietary large language model, a no-code agent builder, Zia Agent Studio, over 25 deployable Zia agents, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region to open up Zoho's vast library of actions to third-party agents. 'Today's announcement emphasises Zoho's longstanding aim to build foundational technology focused on protection of customer data, breadth and depth of capabilities because of the business context, and value," said Premanand Velumani, Associate Director, Strategic Growth Zoho MEA. "Our LLM model is trained specifically for business use cases, keeping privacy and governance at its core, which has resulted in lowering the inference cost, passing on that value to the customers, while also ensuring that they are able to utilise AI productively and efficiently." Zia LLM: Custom-Built AI for the Enterprise Zoho has successfully launched its own large language model, Zia LLM, built completely in-house by leveraging NVIDIA's AI accelerated computing platform. Trained with Zoho product use cases in mind—ranging from structured data extraction, summarisation, RAG, and code generation—Zia LLM comprises three models with 1.3 billion, 2.6 billion and 7 billion parameters, each separately trained and optimised for contextual applicability that benchmark competitively against comparable open source models in the market. The three models allow Zoho to always optimise the right model for the right user context, striking the balance between power and resource management. This focus on right-sizing the model is an ongoing development strategy for Zoho. In the short term, Zoho will scale Zia LLM's model sizes, starting with the first set of parameter increases by the end of 2025. While Zoho supports many LLM integrations for users, including ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek, Zia LLM continues Zoho's commitment to data privacy by allowing customers to keep their data on Zoho servers, leveraging the latest AI capabilities without sending their data to AI cloud providers. The model is currently testing for internal use cases across Zoho's broad app portfolio, and will be available for customer use in coming months. Zoho also announced two proprietary Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models for speech-to-text conversion for English and Hindi. Optimised to perform on a low computer load without compromising on accuracy, the models benchmark up to 75% better than comparable models across standard tests. Zoho will expand language support for ASR models to enable more inclusive AI adoption across diverse regions. It will also introduce a reasoning language model (RLM). Prebuilt Agents, Agent Studio and Marketplace Designed for Real-World Impact Zoho has developed a roster of AI agents contextually baked right into its products to enable immediate adoption of agentic technology. These agents can be used across various business activities, handling relevant actions based on the role of the user. These include Customer Service Agent for Zoho Desk that can process incoming customer requests, understand the context, and either answer directly or triage them to a human rep, providing an efficient first line of assistance. Ask Zia, Zoho's platform-wide conversational AI assistant, is bolstered with additional BI skills, tailored to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists, while supporting all users within an organisation. It can build end-to-end data pipelines for engineers, analyse data, create reports and dashboards in an interactive conversation mode for analysts, or help jump start building ML models for data scientists. First announced earlier in 2025, Zoho has further simplified the Zia Agent Studio experience to be fully prompt-based (with the option to use low-code) and includes ready-made access to over 700 actions across Zoho's products. Agents built by users can be deployed autonomously, triggered by button click, with rule-based automation, or even summoned within customer conversations. At the time of deployment, an agent can be provisioned as a digital employee, maintaining the user access permission structure defined within the organisation. Admins can perform behavioural audits as well as performance and impact analyses on digital employees, ensuring that every agent is working as effectively as possible and within clear guardrails. Several pre-built agents are now available for users, such as Candidate Screener, which identifies and ranks the most suitable candidates for a specific job opening based on role requirements, skills, experience, and other key attributes; Deal Analyser, which can analyse deals and provide insights such as win probability, next best action, and follow-up suggestions, and Revenue Growth Specialist, which suggests opportunities for upsell and cross-sell for existing customers. These agents are available in Agent Marketplace from where customers can easily deploy them. Ecosystem partners, ISVs, and individual developers will be able to create agents and host them on the Zia Agents Marketplace in coming months. The company plans to add more skills to Ask Zia, allowing it to act as an assistant to Finance teams, Customer Support teams to start with. Support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol will be implemented, allowing Zia Agents to interact and collaborate with each other, as well as collaborate with agents on other platforms. Interoperability and Governance Zoho's adoption of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) allows clients to securely access and interact with workflows and actions across over 15 Zoho applications. MCP is available in early access, and integrations via Zoho Flow extend its reach to third-party tools. Zoho Analytics now also supports a local MCP server, allowing for advanced contextual AI use cases while preserving data security and compliance. About Zoho With 55+ apps in nearly every major business category, including sales, marketing, customer support, accounting and back-office operations, and an array of productivity and collaboration tools, Zoho Corporation is one of the world's most prolific technology companies. With 100 million users around the world, hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho every day to run their businesses. Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. The company is privately held and is headquartered in Chennai, India. Additional offices are in the United States, India, Japan, China, Canada, Singapore, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. For more information, please visit For media queries, please contact: Mayukh Sikdar Watermelon Communications Dubai, UAE mayukh@
Khaleej Times
5 days ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
UAE retailers double down on omnichannel strategy as 70% integrate digital tools in-store
Seventy per cent of UAE retailers are now integrating digital tools into their physical stores, signalling a major shift toward omnichannel retail, a study showed. According to The UAE Retailer Survey, conducted by Zoho Commerce, a unit of Zoho Corp, a leading global technology company, 57 per cent of UAE retailers operate both physical and digital storefronts, with nearly 7 in 10 of them generating equal revenue from both channels. This reflects a growing maturity in omnichannel commerce, as businesses adopt unified strategies that enhance convenience, reach, and personalisation. Retailers cited expanded market access, changing consumer behaviour, and the need for more tailored experiences as key drivers of this transformation. Despite the growth of e-commerce, 50 per cent of the retailers plan to expand their physical footprint, with pop-up stores and in-store partnerships emerging as popular strategies to provide experiential value and instant gratification. Social media has become the leading discovery channel, with 69 per cent of respondents saying it's where their customers first find their products —surpassing search engines and marketplaces. Interestingly, one in three businesses that are operating completely offline gather feedback from online channels, a sign of how digital and physical engagement channels continue to become increasingly intertwined. Speed and convenience also emerged as top consumer priorities. 54 per cent of the retailers report growing demand for faster delivery, and 49 per cent note rising expectations for same-day service. Retail businesses cite that the top reasons that their customers shop online are convenience and savings, while for in-store customers the key motivators are the ability to touch, try, and the satisfaction of taking the products home immediately. In response, retailers are investing in in-store technology: 64 per cent now offer mobile payments, and over 60 per cent have implemented digital screens or tablets to aid product discovery. Nearly 70 per cent say in-store tech enhances speed and customer convenience. However, omnichannel execution is not without challenges. 51 per cent of retailers struggle to balance online and offline operations, while others face logistics issues and rising operational costs. Common friction points for customers include high shipping fees for online retailers, while limited staff availability, and long checkout lines contribute to customer drop-offs for retailers with physical stores. Looking ahead, nearly 60 per cent of retailers are investing in AI and machine learning to improve competitiveness, with key focus areas including seamless integration across channels, expanded payment options, and hyper-personalised experiences. Nearly half believe AI will fundamentally reshape the future of online retail. 'The retail sector in the UAE is taking a more holistic and intelligent approach to commerce,' says Prashant Ganti, Vice President, Global Product Strategy, Finance & Operations, Zoho. 'Our study shows retailers are building unified experiences by combining other online and offline channels, reflecting a trend in how a modern consumer purchases. As the country's retail sector continues its digital evolution, businesses that invest in the right tools, including AI to enhance buyer experience will lead the next wave of growth. Zoho is committed to supporting this evolution with our solutions like Zoho Commerce that help businesses build, market, and manage their online stores with ease, provide personalised customer experiences, and sell globally across multiple channels.'
Time of India
02-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Zoho ramps up robotics research with acquisition of Asimov Robotics
Chennai: In a bid to expand its capabilities in robotics, Zoho Corporation has acquired Kerala-based Asimov Robotics for an undisclosed sum and opened the company's new campus in Kottarakkara in Kollam, Kerala. Founded in 2012, Asimov Robotics specialises in providing robotic solutions to industries for addressing hazardous, inefficient, and repetitive scenarios. With this, Zoho aims to expand its research and development capabilities into robotics and Asimov employees would continue their efforts from the Kottarakkara office with mentorship from Zoho's team, the company said in a statement. Previously Zoho has invested in Thiruvananthapuram-based Genrobotics, a robotics and AI solutions for sanitation and maintenance processes and Karuvi, Chennai-based mechatronics startup designing and developing consumer and industrial power tools. It also has investments in Yali Aerospace, a drone-tech startup and EV maker Ultraviolette, among others. The Kottarakkara campus has a seating capacity of 250, and will initially be dedicated to AI and robotics research. "Apart from our own work in these fields, we also will be collaborating with like-minded deep-tech organisations to further amplify our efforts. Our goal remains the same, to develop these capabilities in India and make the country self-reliant in terms of critical technology," said Shailesh Davey, chief executive and co-founder of Zoho Corp. It was inaugurated by state chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan with the presence of Tony Thomas, CEO, Zoho US, and Sridhar Vembu, Zoho Corp chief scientist. You Can Also Check: Chennai AQI | Weather in Chennai | Bank Holidays in Chennai | Public Holidays in Chennai The company also partnered with Kerala Startup Mission for its deep tech product studio initiative, and formed associations with startups and organisations for a range of R&D collaborations, it said. Zoho's entry into the state further validates the state's startup ecosystem as an enabler to attract big companies through strategic acquisitions, investments, Anoop Ambika, CEO of Kerala Startup Mission was quoted as saying.
Web Release
01-07-2025
- Business
- Web Release
Zoho Powers Up CRM for Everyone Platform with AI to Elevate Customer Experience
Zoho Corp, a leading global technology company, today introduced enhanced AI and work orchestration features to its customer experience (CX) platform, all powered by Zia, Zoho's proprietary AI engine. These new capabilities are designed to eliminate technological hurdles, making it easier for cross-functional teams to adopt and collaborate within the CRM as they work to deliver better customer outcomes. 'Multiple people in an organisation need access to customer information, yet historically, CRMs have been relegated to only sales teams,' said Hyther Nizam, President Middle East and Africa (MEA), Zoho. 'As we democratise CRM with the launch of CRM for Everyone, we also need to build in capabilities that make it easy for anyone to build and extend CRM with simple prompts, without having to be an expert in the system. This is where Zia's advanced capabilities come in. Now, anyone can create capabilities, workflows, or reports in CRM with a simple prompt. They can also make their CRM look the way they want with Zia's image to design capabilities.' Available across all MENA countries, the new enhancements equip MENA businesses with a powerful set of tools including expanded capabilities from Zia and the introduction of two major features: Connected Records and Connected Workflows. Together, these additions mark a significant step forward in making CX tools more intelligent, accessible, and collaborative across the entire organisation. Among the advanced Zia capabilities is Report Creation with Ask Zia, a new agentic feature where users can simply issue a prompt to generate a report. Zia then builds the report in real time, respecting the user's access permissions, and allowing the user to visualise and even interrupt the process to make changes before resuming. This is part of a broader rollout of agentic AI across Zoho's platform. Similarly, Custom Module Creation enables users to configure their CRM setup using natural language, eliminating the need for code. Whether creating modules, modifying field types, or adjusting permissions, users can now tailor the system to their needs through plain-text instructions. In the same spirit, Workflow Creation with Ask Zia allows users to design and implement custom workflows via simple prompts. Zia acts as an intelligent agent that executes the task on the user's behalf, greatly reducing the complexity of process automation. Meanwhile, Image to Canvas introduces a novel image-to-design function that transforms static visuals into dynamic CRM layouts, layering intuitive design over structured customer data. Building on the foundation of CRM for Everyone, Zoho continues to reshape how teams collaborate across the customer journey. The introduction of Connected Records ensures that work and context are automatically linked across different team modules, so that customer information remains consistent and up-to-date across all touchpoints. In parallel, Connected Workflows serves as a coordination layer, automatically managing cross-functional processes spanning departments like sales, marketing, onboarding, finance, and legal. These features not only improve visibility and alignment across teams but also ensure that every customer interaction is informed, timely, and consistent from start to finish.
