Zoho Just Did What Salesforce and HubSpot Won’t

Let’s be brutally honest here: the majority of people are tired of hearing about AI. Some feel it’s just noise—headlines screaming about billion-dollar models and endless versions that most can’t even tell apart. Still, despite the saturation, we can’t ignore it forever. Like it or not, AI is here to stay. It’s continuously evolving and, arguably, becoming more useful to us.

A great example of that is Zoho, often seen as the underdog in the enterprise software world. They’ve just introduced their own large language model, Zia. But unlike many AI announcements, this one isn’t about hype or scale. It’s about solving real problems.

If you're a business leader grappling with CRM adoption, data overload, or a lack of automation, this might be one of the few AI updates that actually deserves your attention.

What Exactly Did Zoho Launch?

Last month, Zoho made an announcement about an AI model they didn’t launch just to ride the AI wave, and it’s definitely not just another chatbot bolted onto the side of our screens. They launched their own language model, trained entirely in-house, called Zia LLM. But what they dropped isn’t just a model release, they rolled out:

• Three distinct Zia LLMs, each tuned for different types of thinking and tasks

• 25 prebuilt AI agents for sales, marketing, customer support, and operations

• A no-code Custom Agent Builder for businesses to create their own GPT-style agents

• A self-hostable MCP server (Model Composition Platform) for enterprises who need full data control

Basically, this is Zoho saying: ‘You deserve AI that works the way your business actually runs.’

Why Should Business Leaders Pay Attention?

1. This Isn’t ChatGPT—And That’s the Point

The first fact we should all know is that Zoho didn’t try to compete with ChatGPT. In fact, Zoho’s Director of AI Research, Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, told Analytics India Magazine bluntly: “We don’t have the muscle to compete with the likes of ChatGPT or Gemini, to be honest.” And that simple fact is precisely why Zia is different and, above all, valuable.

Zia doesn’t aim to write blogs or generate your organization’s poetry. Its main purpose is to read your CRM data, understand your processes, spot inefficiencies, and trigger actions. As CEO Mani Vembu said during the annual user conference Zoholics India, “It will help [the] businesses we serve [become] more seamlessly integrated and function more efficiently.”

2. AI Is Becoming a Business Layer, Not a Tool

With Zia, Zoho isn’t just adding another feature to our everyday tools; it is most likely to become a second layer that works across our business because it is already built into the tools that we use every day, such as CRM, Desk, Campaigns, Books, and more.

To make you visualize things, for example you’re a support lead and you ask: “Show me any open tickets from VIP customers that haven’t had a reply in over 4 hours and escalate them right away.”

Zia doesn’t only pull up data, but it understands the intent and takes action right there, without you digging through dashboards.

3. Build Your Own GPT

Using your own data and workflows, you can build GPT-style AI agents tailored to your needs. You could spin up:

• A support agent that answers tickets using your internal knowledge base

• A finance assistant that spots oddities in your invoices

• A sales coach that helps representatives prepare for upcoming deals, using your playbook and not generic advice

What Sets Zoho Apart in a Crowd of AI Noise?

While the big players like Salesforce and Microsoft are locking their AI features behind premium paywalls, Zoho’s taking a different approach.

First off, they built it themselves. No plugging OpenAI into their tools, just their own stack, built from the ground up. What that really means is more control over how it works, and more privacy for the people using it.

Then there’s the fact that you can run it in-house. Their MCP server lets enterprise teams deploy the AI on-premises, which is actually a big deal for industries like finance and government where data privacy actually matters.

And finally, there’s no extra fee just because it’s “AI.” Zoho’s rolling Zia features into the plans people already pay for. Simple as that.

The Bottom Line: This Isn’t the Flashiest AI Launch — But It Might Be the Most Useful

At FWRD, we’ve said it before, Zoho isn’t chasing attention. They’re building the kind of AI infrastructure that reflectxs what real customers actually need, without asking them to triple their budget just to access it.

For business leaders building lean teams and real systems, this isn’t about keeping up with tech trends. It’s about staying ahead in a way that’s actually sustainable.

Zia LLM may not be the loudest AI in the market, but it might be the one that quietly transforms how your business works.

Ready to see how Zia LLM can help your team work smarter? Let’s start the conversation today.