Artificial intelligence is everywhere, and for many businesses, the reality doesn’t quite live up to the hype. The promise of elevated productivity and effortless automation often falls flat, leaving companies to wonder, "Why doesn't AI seem to work for me?"

Zoho, a company that runs its own 18,000 person organisation on its products, offers a different perspective. They believe that the key to successful AI adoption isn’t just about having the latest technology - it’s about having a solid foundation.

The Prerequisite to AI: Digital Maturity

Before you can achieve AI maturity, you need digital maturity. Think of it this way: you can't build a smart home on a shaky foundation. Similarly, you can’t effectively leverage AI if your business processes are a mess and your data is scattered in silos.

For AI to provide real value, your organization must first streamline its processes and ensure data flows seamlessly across departments. Only then can AI tools provide the actionable insights and automation that they are designed for.

Where AI Delivers Real Value

Zoho has observed a clear pattern in AI adoption: it’s fastest and most successful in profit centres and departments that have a higher level of digital maturity.

• Sales and Marketing: AI is used to identify high-value leads, predict sales anomalies, and provide valuable insights from past wins and losses. AI can analyse call transcripts and meeting recordings to summarise key information, helping sales teams sell more effectively.
• Customer Service: While AI bots often frustrate customers, AI is a powerful tool for empowering human agents. By instantly providing agents with a customer’s history and relevant information from the CRM, AI helps them solve problems faster and reduce customer frustration.
• Finance: AI automates tedious tasks like expense management using OCR to process receipts. It can also assist with policy enforcement, flagging out-of-policy spending and ensuring compliance without bogging down approvers.
• Human Resources: AI should be a support function, not a decision-maker. It can assist with generating job descriptions, providing quick answers to internal policy questions, and simplifying tasks like attendance tracking.

Zoho's Core Principles for AI

Zoho's approach to AI is built on a few non-negotiable principles that set it apart.

1. Your Data is Yours

Zoho doesn't train its AI models on your company's proprietary data. While a baseline model is trained on public information, it only learns and evolves with your data for inference, ensuring your information remains private and secure. Unlike other vendors, they don't hold your data hostage, emphasising that "your data is your data."

2. Value-Driven, Not Price-Driven

Instead of charging a premium for AI features, Zoho embeds them as a core part of its existing products. They focus on delivering real, measurable value—not just buzzwords. This commitment to value is a result of their long-term investment in AI, which began back in 2011.

3. Integrated Platform and "Next Best Action"

Zoho's strength lies in its unified platform. AI isn't a standalone chatbot; it's seamlessly integrated into your workflows. Their goal is to help you take the "next best action" at any given moment—whether that's escalating a critical customer issue, engaging a high-value lead, or summarising a long meeting. Because all your data is on a single platform, the AI can draw insights from sales, finance, legal, and HR to provide a complete picture.

4. Homegrown Technology and Infrastructure

Zoho operates its own data centres and has built its own enterprise-optimized AI models, including the Zia LLM. This strategic independence allows them to control costs, avoid relying on third-party providers, and tailor solutions specifically for business use cases. By focusing on right-sized models, they can deploy effective solutions without the massive costs associated with consumer-grade LLMs.

Key Takeaways for Your Business

• Focus on the foundation: Before investing heavily in AI, make sure your processes are streamlined and your data is well-organized.
• Empower, don't replace: Use AI to empower your employees, not to replace them. The most successful implementations support human tasks and provide valuable insights.
• Think long-term: The true value of AI comes from a strategic, integrated approach. Find a partner who prioritizes privacy, delivers tangible value, and can support your entire business lifecycle.

By cutting through the hype and focusing on a solid, value-driven strategy, Zoho aims to make AI work for you - and your business.