Zoho has moved 1.1 million Government of India users to Zoho Workplace in a move that highlights how the vendor, known for its disruptive pricing and reach with smaller enterprises, can scale.
In addition, Zoho, which has more than 130 million users, rolled out a series of AI agents for its collaboration, human resources and customer experience apps across its platform.
Regarding the India government migration, Zoho Chief Evangelist Raju Vegesna said during a briefing that the 1.1 million users is just the first installment of the migration. "There are a few other million users coming," said Vegesna. "It's an ongoing process."
Zoho said India's National Informatics Center (NIC) asked for proposals in 2023 to shift collaboration services to a dedicated, secure environment. Zoho was selected to manage and migrate official email and office suite services.
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The custom rebranded version of Zoho Workspace will be available for government departments for email, files, documents and communications. India's government is specifically using Zoho Mail, WorkDrive, Meeting, Cliq, Mobile Device Management, Writer, Sheet and Show, OneAuth and Contacts.
Zoho's apps are hosted in a secure data center under NIC's control and includes a complete cybersecurity stack.
As for the agentic AI additions, Zoho said its latest AI agents will be available at no charge across Zoho Collaboration, Customer Experience and Human Resources.
The AI agents from Zoho are a fast follow from the launch of Zia Hubs and Zia LLM, its proprietary B2B model.
Among the agents launching:
- Lead Generation Agent works across Zoho Mail and CRM to go through unread messages, identify sales queries and converts them into a lead in Zoho CRM.
- AI Base Creation enables customers to create a use case with a prompt. Zia will create a base with relevant tables, sample data and linked fields. The agent works within Zoho Tables.
- Resolution Expert, which works within Zoho Desk, documents ticket resolutions for other agents to resolve similar issues.
- Agreement Intelligence, which is used in Zoho Sign, generates drafts of contracts, agreements and documents.
- HR agents in Zoho Recruit include Candidate Matches, Job Matches and AI-Assisted Assessment Generation.
Philip Edey, Business Analyst at Arctic Spas Inc., said in a briefing that Zoho's AI tools are enabling the company to scale and manage nearly 1,000 leads a week, up from 300 leads. Edey said:
"Integrating AI and agentic systems into our workflow is key for the next six months to the year and going forward. With 14 corporate stores and a huge network of dealers, we want to try to make these tools work for us and work for our staff to make it a better user experience. Zoho's AI driven suite can help us get there."
Vegesna said Zoho is rolling out agents and new Zia capabilities. The approach is "to open it up to a limited set of people, and as we gain feedback, refine it," said Vegesna, who noted cybersecurity is a key area.
