Zoho takes on Microsoft and Google with new Zia-powered agentic AI capabilities for enterprise apps

Zoho

Zoho has rolled out a slate of agentic AI features across its enterprise stack — spanning Zoho Mail, Zoho CRM, Zoho Tables, Zoho Recruit and Zoho Desk — marking its most direct challenge yet to Microsoft and Google in the enterprise productivity and AI layer. The announcement arrives at a time when Zoho is gaining traction in Indian government offices under the Centre’s push for preference of domestically-built digital tools.

The newly introduced agents are designed to perform multi-step business tasks with minimal human supervision — such as detecting sales intent in inboxes, generating database structures, matching candidates to roles or producing assessments for hiring workflows.

Zoho’s presence has expanded in ministries after the Centre’s call to opt for made-in-India software. Senior ministers including Amit Shah, JP Nadda and Ashwini Vaishnaw have confirmed shifting to Zoho for official communication and collaboration.

Among the additions are lead-creation from unread emails inside Zoho Mail and CRM, AI-generated databases in Zoho Tables, candidate-role matching and assessment generation in Zoho Recruit, and resolution documentation in Zoho Desk to reinforce support knowledge.

Zoho is bundling these AI agents within existing plans instead of charging a separate AI fee. The company says its single in-house stack allows agent rollout without external plug-ins, integration overheads or incremental AI pricing — diverging from Microsoft Copilot and Google Duet AI models.

The agent capabilities run on Zoho’s Zia large language model built internally on NVIDIA infrastructure, with Zia Hubs ingesting unstructured enterprise data to supply context. Zoho argues that this vertically-integrated approach can reduce friction around data readiness, legacy systems and AI mark-ups.

Positioning against incumbents

With bundled agentic automation, domestic policy tailwinds and a full in-house stack, Zoho is positioning itself as a cost-contained alternative to US enterprise suites as AI agents become the core of workflow automation.