Zoho Enhances Low-Code Platform with AI-Powered Features

Zoho adds AI capabilities to its low code dev platform

Enhancements include a new AI assistant for developers and the ability to transform unstructured data from various file types into customized apps. Zoho on Wednesday announced the addition of 10 AI-centric services and features within Zoho Creator, the company's low code application development platform, that it said are part of its pledge to invest only in "AI capabilities that drive real-time, practical and secure benefits to business users." The expanded offerings include CoCreator, the firm's new AI "development partner" powered by Zia, Zoho's AI assistant, that it said in a release "facilitates faster, simpler and more intelligent app building with the use of voice and written prompts, process flows and business specification documents." New features also include the ability to transform unstructured data from different file types and databases into customized applications, aided by what the company described as "advanced AI-based data prep capabilities that remove inconsistencies and bring logical structure to detail."

Zoho Wants to Be Your Go-To Platform for Meaningful Vibe Coding | AIM

Will Zoho's price advantage spark a vibe coding revolution for businesses and developers? Indian software giant Zoho has unveiled a series of AI enhancements to its low-code application development platform, Zoho Creator. The update, in the form of 'CoCreator', has launched globally today and aims to simplify and accelerate the process of building applications for both developers and non-technical users. CoCreator enables users to build and refine applications using written prompts, process diagrams, or business specification documents. The feature is powered by Zoho's AI engine, Zia, which aims to reduce the time required to launch applications and make the development process more accessible. AIM spoke with Bharath Kumar, head of marketing and customer experience at Zoho, to understand what CoCreator aims to achieve and what it is capable of. Launched in 2006 as a basic online database tool, the Zoho Creator platform has evolved over time to meet market demands. Over the years, it has expanded its capabilities to address workflows, cloud capabilities, and much more. Kumar revealed that the recent AI integration marks a paradigm shift, enhancing the platform's capabilities to empower users, whether they are experienced developers or non-technical professionals, such as those in sales, HR, or marketing. He shared that the vision with AI capabilities has been to empower everyone, simplify processes, and enable users to build powerful applications. Kumar explained that the development of CoCreator was driven by a focus on key factors, with one of the main priorities being context. "The value of AI is in context, because the features are becoming table stakes," he said. He emphasised that the use case for an AI ability is more important than the feature itself, especially considering the rapid pace at which AI features are becoming available to everyone. This, he explained, is how they plan to differentiate themselves from competitors. Kumar discussed another approach that aims to empower developers, rather than threatening their work. "What AI is helping with boils down to just two fundamental things -- it is either helping you do things faster, or it is helping you do things at a better quality." He mentioned that the focus remains on providing speed and quality to the businesses and developers. Kumar also emphasised that they want to make the AI experience for developers and non-technical users seamless. Hence, one can zero in on the work without having to worry about the backend logic, training, and other technical details. All things considered, Zoho has been internally testing the new AI capabilities for six months prior to release, providing confidence to its users in AI code generation capabilities and ensuring a secure experience. Zoho's CoCreator aims to simplify the app-building process. It is just like any other chatbot interaction, but within the Zoho platform. For example, a business requirements document can be uploaded and transformed into an app in just a few seconds. Moreover, users can import data from spreadsheets or cloud storage, and CoCreator will automatically generate the app, integrating the imported data into the application's structure. The platform provides visual information on what is being done and the various modules being built. It asks whether the user wants to add more, displays the app schema, and outlines all the details about user permissions and components. Users can also use CoCreator to optimise the existing code. AIM witnessed it in action during an exclusive briefing and can confirm that the AI feature potentially enhanced the readability of the code by adding comments, among other technical improvements. The platform also enables deeper integrations with other tools by default. While the platform primarily supports Zoho's own ecosystem, including Zoho People and Zoho Recruit, it is expanding its reach to integrate with third-party services, such as Salesforce. AIM asked for information regarding context length, benchmark comparisons in terms of coding, and the foundational AI model being used under the hood to power Zoho AI. The company declined to comment, stating that the details are highly sensitive and internal. According to Kumar, the platform is free to existing Zoho customers who are already subscribed to OpenAI or Zoho's own AI models. He highlighted the free access to AI code generation through Zoho AI as a strategic move to drive adoption and gather feedback on how AI can be leveraged in real-world business environments. Kumar acknowledged that as usage scales, the platform might eventually adopt a pricing model that reflects the cost of running such a sophisticated service. "How much a user will be willing to pay for the quality and speed is the thing that we have to decide. Currently, we are not able to, primarily because we don't know how the users are going to use it and how much value they will see for it," he said. "But for this year, we are not looking at pricing it." Kumar also mentioned that they plan to add the ability to have a voice recording uploaded and build an app from it.

Zoho Launches Advanced AI Capabilities in Zoho Creator, Low-Code Development Platform, for Faster, Easier App Creation

Zoho Corporation, a global technology company, today announced the launch of new (AI)-powered services and features within Zoho Creator, the company's low-code application development platform. These new enhancements align with Zoho's pledge to invest in AI capabilities that provide real-time, practical, and secure benefits to business users. CoCreator, a new addition to the Zoho Creator platform, facilitates faster, simpler, and more intelligent app building with the use of voice and written prompts, process flows, and business specification documents. CoCreator speeds up go-to-market timeframes and democratises app creation for users of diverse skill levels-all without requiring add-ons to a customer's existing subscription. It is powered by Zia, Zoho's AI engine. Zia has been the foundational AI bridge across Zoho's product portfolio of 55+ applications, including Zoho Creator, since its launch in 2015. As AI becomes central to business operations, Zoho's ownership of its tech stack and deep AI integration provide customers with a higher level of contextual AI across all company workflows compared to competitors. It also allows for a tool that understands a business user's data and anticipates how it can be utilised. "Since Zoho Creator's introduction in 2006, we have been laser-focused on simplifying and speeding up the app development process without sacrificing functionality. This focus has enabled our users to launch millions of business-critical applications successfully," said Bharath Kumar B, Head of Marketing and Customer Experience, Zoho Creator. "AI allows us to take it to another level. We are now able to help users transform abstract business ideas into apps, while raising the baseline on speed of quality app creation with deep capabilities. Keeping with Zoho's philosophy, we are incorporating this capability into our main platform-no additional or hidden costs." With Idea-to-App Generation feature, business users can leverage ZohoAI or OpenAI to develop full-fledged applications including, automations, permission sets and insightful dashboards. By using text or voice prompts, process flow diagrams, or systems documentations like software requirement specifications (SRS), Creator will provide domain-specific suggestions, ideas for relevant fields, and modules tailored to a customer's business. Furthermore, business users can leverage AI to generate application components to enhance their existing applications. Zia will also proactively recommend contextual fields within an existing form, a feature missing in most similar low-code app development tools. With this new update, various developer personas can leverage Zia's prompts to automatically generate contextual code blocks tailored to application requirements and structure. This feature can also be used to optimise and annotate existing code blocks for ideal performance. Creator also offers enhanced AI-powered data cleansing and modelling capabilities that remove inconsistencies and bring logical structure to the data. Business users can quickly transform unstructured data from various file types and databases into customised apps. With the AI Skills capability, businesses can develop applications with advanced cognitive capabilities that interpret natural language commands, analyse business context, and orchestrate complex action sequences (powered by Zoho's proprietary Deluge scripting language and specialised AI models) to intelligently automate everyday processes. (This feature is currently available in early access, and will be available to all in June 2025.) Lastly, users can also deploy custom AI models for capabilities like OCR, prediction, and object detection. Zoho Artificial Intelligence Differentiation Zoho is committed to designing and incorporating artificial intelligence guided by the principles of customer privacy and value. Zoho's generic AI models across contextual, assistive, and agentic AI, are not trained on consumer data and do not retain customer information. Zoho builds AI tools with usefulness in mind, striking a balance between providing AI technology that assists workers while right-sizing models that don't require burdening consumers with additional costs. About Zoho With over 55 apps across nearly every major business category, Zoho Corporation is one of the world's most prolific technology companies. Headquartered in Chennai, India, Zoho is privately held and profitable, employing more than 18,000 people worldwide. Zoho is committed to user privacy and does not rely on an ad-revenue business model. The company owns and operates its data centres, providing full oversight of customer data privacy and security. Over 100 million users globally -- across hundreds of thousands of companies -- trust Zoho to run their businesses, including Zoho itself. For more information, visit www.zoho.com.