Last Updated on March 11, 2025 by Sam Gupta
At its Analyst Day 2025, Zoho Corporation outlined its vision for enterprise automation, emphasizing Agentic AI and IoT-driven business solutions. The company’s latest advancements indicate a shift toward task-specific AI agents and an expanded IoT ecosystem. This positions the company as a key player in AI-powered enterprise software. While many technology companies focus on large, generalized AI models, Zoho has adopted an industry-specific approach. It is developing lightweight AI agents tailored for automation, security, and real-time decision-making. According to the company, these Agentic AI systems offer greater adaptability and explainability compared to traditional AI models.
Alongside AI developments, Zoho introduced new IoT solutions for manufacturing, smart buildings, energy management, and connected OEMs. It has fully integrated these solutions with its software suite and enabled support for third-party applications. This expands their use cases across various enterprise environments. The event also brought leadership changes, with co-founder Sridhar Vembu transitioning to Chief Scientist. He will focus on AI research and innovation. Meanwhile, Shailesh Kumar Davey, another co-founder, was appointed CEO, ensuring continuity in Zoho’s long-term strategic direction.
This article provides a detailed breakdown of Zoho’s key announcements and their implications for enterprises. It also includes an analyst’s perspective on opportunities, challenges, and future predictions for Zoho and its customers.
Breakdown of Key Announcements
Zoho Analyst Day 2025 brought several strategic updates, highlighting the company’s focus on AI, IoT, and enterprise automation. From leadership transitions to the introduction of Agentic AI and expanded IoT capabilities, Zoho’s latest developments signal a strong commitment to innovation. The following sections provide a detailed look at Zoho’s key announcements and their potential impact on businesses.
Leadership Transition and Strategic Vision
Zoho has undergone a major leadership transition, with former CEO Sridhar Vembu becoming Chief Scientist. He will focus on AI research and deep-tech innovation. Meanwhile, Shailesh Kumar Davey, a co-founder of Zoho, has been promoted to CEO. This is ensuring continuity in leadership as the company accelerates its AI and IoT expansion. This shift reflects Zoho’s long-term commitment to AI development, reinforcing its strategy to stand out through practical, industry-driven AI solutions. Unlike competitors investing in large-scale generative AI models, Zoho is prioritizing Agentic AI. It is smaller, task-specific AI agents designed for real-world business applications.
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Introduction of Agentic AI
Zoho has introduced its next-generation Agentic AI framework, marking a significant step forward in its artificial intelligence capabilities. The company’s AI evolution has progressed through several stages, beginning with Proactive AI, which focused on basic automation. It was followed by Prescriptive AI, designed for recommendation-based intelligence. This was later expanded with Generative AI, enabling content creation and workflow automation. The latest development, Agentic AI, brings AI-driven decision-making and autonomous agents capable of operating independently in business environments. Unlike large, compute-intensive AI models, Zoho’s approach prioritizes specialized, task-specific AI agents designed for practical, real-world applications.
Core advantages of Zoho’s Agentic AI approach:
- Task-Specific AI Agents: These agents handle specific tasks like decision-making, automation, and workflow optimization.
- Explainability & Testability: AI decisions are not just automated but also verifiable through machine-checkable logic, making them more reliable for enterprises.
- No-Code AI Customization: Businesses can train AI agents without needing extensive technical expertise, accelerating adoption.
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Expansion of the Zia AI Platform
Zoho’s Zia AI platform was upgraded with several new tools to help businesses implement AI-powered automation:
- Zia Agents: AI-powered assistants designed to handle industry-specific business tasks.
- Zia Agent Studio: A no-code AI builder that allows businesses to create and customize AI agents without programming knowledge.
- Zia Agent Marketplace: A repository of over 1,500 prebuilt AI models, making it easy for companies to deploy AI agents with minimal setup.
- Zoho’s Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) AI architecture allows AI to learn from real-time data instead of relying on large, pre-trained datasets, reducing bias and improving accuracy.
IoT Expansion: Industry-Specific Solutions
Zoho has announced a significant expansion of its IoT capabilities, introducing solutions tailored for industries such as manufacturing, smart buildings, energy management, and connected OEMs. In manufacturing, the company is focusing on industrial IoT solutions that enable predictive maintenance, smart factory operations, and real-time monitoring. For smart buildings, Zoho is offering energy-efficient automation, security management, and remote monitoring solutions designed for commercial infrastructure. In the energy sector, its AI-driven tools aim to enhance grid monitoring and power optimization for providers.
Additionally, for connected OEMs, Zoho is introducing automated quality control, smart supply chain monitoring, and equipment analytics to improve operational efficiency. To ensure seamless integration, Zoho’s IoT ecosystem now supports over 40 communication protocols, including MQTT, BACnet, Modbus, Zigbee, and CoAP, enabling compatibility with a broad range of enterprise systems.
Integration with Zoho and Third-Party Applications
Zoho’s AI and IoT solutions integrate seamlessly with its applications, including Zoho CRM, Zoho Analytics, Zoho Creator, and Zoho Desk. Businesses can also connect Zoho’s AI agents to SAP, Oracle, and Salesforce through API integrations for broader interoperability..The platform is built for scalability, allowing enterprises to deploy AI-driven automation across multiple departments and workflows, enhancing efficiency and operational flexibility.
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Security and Compliance in AI & IoT
Zoho has implemented end-to-end encryption across its AI and IoT-driven automation to enhance data privacy and security. In addition, device authentication mechanisms have been introduced to prevent unauthorized access and ensure system integrity. The company is also working toward compliance with major global security frameworks, making its solutions suitable for highly regulated industries such as finance, healthcare, and government.
Future Roadmap: AI-First Vertical Strategy
Zoho is refining its vertical sales strategy by focusing on industry-specific AI solutions to drive enterprise adoption. As part of this effort, the company is developing AI-powered GenAI chatbots that will enable businesses to simplify AI and IoT deployment through natural language interfaces. Looking ahead, Zoho aims to enhance its AI-first approach across all enterprise applications, making automation more intuitive, efficient, and secure.
Analyst’s Take
Zoho’s approach to Agentic AI and IoT integration reflects a strategic focus on enterprise-centric automation, distinguishing itself from competitors that emphasize generalized AI models. By developing task-specific AI agents and expanding secure, scalable IoT solutions, the company is positioning itself within the enterprise software market with a more targeted and adaptable approach.
Strengths & Market Opportunities
- Structured & Explainable AI
Zoho’s Agentic AI framework follows a structured, testable model that prioritizes transparency and verifiability in AI-driven decision-making. This approach addresses concerns related to unpredictable AI outputs, which remain a key challenge for enterprises adopting AI technologies. - Enhanced Enterprise IoT Integration
The company’s IoT expansion strengthens its position in industries such as manufacturing, smart infrastructure, and energy management, where real-time monitoring and automation are critical. - IT & Security Expansion
Zoho’s ManageEngine portfolio continues to grow, enhancing its credibility in enterprise IT automation and making it a viable competitor in compliance-heavy industries. - Seamless AI Deployment
Tools like Zia Agent Studio and Agent Marketplace provide businesses with the flexibility to customize AI models without requiring deep technical expertise, simplifying AI adoption across multiple industries.
Considerations & Challenges for Enterprises
- Adoption & AI Maturity
Before full-scale deployment, enterprises may benefit from conducting pilot implementations to evaluate the real-world effectiveness of Zoho’s AI agents in specific use cases. - Enterprise System Compatibility
Organizations that rely on SAP, Oracle, or Salesforce should assess potential integration complexities when incorporating Zoho’s AI solutions into their existing workflows. - Regulatory & Security Considerations
Businesses operating in regulated sectors such as healthcare and finance must carefully examine Zoho’s compliance with industry-specific security standards to ensure data privacy and regulatory adherence.
What the Future Looks Like for Zoho and Its Customers?
- Deeper AI Integration Across Zoho’s Software Suite – Zoho is likely to expand its AI-driven automation across core applications, including CRM, analytics, customer support, and finance. The introduction of AI-powered workflows may improve operational efficiency and enhance decision-making for businesses.
- AI-First Vertical Strategies for Industry-Specific Adoption – Zoho’s emphasis on industry-focused AI suggests the development of sector-specific AI solutions tailored for industries such as retail, healthcare, manufacturing, and logistics. This aligns with increasing enterprise demand for AI tools designed to address specialized business challenges.
- Growth in AI-Powered IoT for Industrial Applications – As part of its IoT expansion, Zoho is expected to focus on applications like predictive maintenance, smart infrastructure, and energy management. AI integration within IoT could enable more efficient, real-time decision-making for industrial operations.
- Increased Focus on AI Security and Compliance – With growing enterprise reliance on AI, Zoho is likely to strengthen its security and compliance framework, ensuring data privacy and AI transparency. This could include advanced governance tools that allow businesses to monitor and audit AI-driven decisions.
- Evolution of Leadership and Research-Driven AI Development – With Sridhar Vembu shifting to the role of Chief Scientist, Zoho may prioritize AI research and innovation, focusing on secure, explainable AI models rather than black-box automation. This approach could help enterprises build trustworthy AI systems with improved testability.
- Expansion into Enterprise IT Management & Security – Through ManageEngine, Zoho is expected to enhance its role in enterprise IT automation and security. This makes it a stronger contender in the IT management space. This move could attract large-scale enterprises looking for integrated AI-powered IT solutions.
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