Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has announced that Arattai, the company’s homegrown messaging platform, is now in the final stage of rolling out mandatory system-wide end-to-end encryption (E2EE). The update—one of the most significant architectural changes for the app—is currently undergoing its last round of internal testing and is expected to be deployed in the coming days.
In a detailed update shared on X, Vembu said the team has chosen “option 2,” which enforces end-to-end encryption across all conversations. The rollout will begin with one-on-one chats, with group chats to follow later. Describing the scope of the change, Vembu said, “We had to do some redesign around it and we wanted extensive testing because it is a drastic change.”
According to him, the underlying encryption protocol was stable, but challenges emerged in the migration workflow and file transfer process once encryption became mandatory. These issues surfaced during testing by around 6,000 Zoho employees. “The issues we identified were in the mandatory switch-over process itself, and also in transferring larger files. The switch-over process has been refined now,” Vembu explained in a follow-up post.
A fresh build addressing these problems is now being evaluated internally. If this phase runs smoothly, the update will be pushed to all users, but with a forced upgrade requirement for everyone. “It will be a forced upgrade on all because it is a drastic change,” Vembu noted.
Users who update the app today may observe a faster and sleeker interface, but the mandatory encryption feature will only activate once Zoho enables it from the backend. “While it already has the code for mandatory E2E encryption, it won’t work until we enable it and we will do it after another round of testing,” Vembu said.
His announcement sparked active discussion among users. Some asked whether the shift was driven purely by privacy goals or influenced by regulatory expectations. Others questioned how older chats would be handled under the new system. A few responses also pointed out the need for stronger marketing to improve Arattai’s visibility, with one user writing that having a good product alone “isn’t enough unless people know about it.”
Despite varied perspectives, several users appreciated the cautious approach. One community member noted, “A rushed encryption rollout can create more problems than it solves.”
Vembu ended his update by thanking users for their patience as Arattai prepares one of its biggest security upgrades to date.
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