Chapter 1: Introduction
A tech revolution in the making
"Create a 10 second Facebook video on cybersecurity." Within minutes, you have a video ready for social media. A simple prompt can help you do anything from creating content to automating processes. AI is a disruptive force that has made us reimagine the way we work. Leading tech giants are investing in this groundbreaking technology, hoping to harness its power and transform their products and services.
We're no stranger to AI. Research and development (R&D) is in our DNA, and a big part of that is figuring out how AI plays a role in our solutions. Zia, the Zoho Intelligent Assistant, is the result of our efforts and the key to optimizing our processes-and our focus in this e-book. We will explore:
Zoho's foray into AI
We'll dive into our R&D efforts and take an insider look at ZLabs, a dedicated team for AI and Machine Learning (ML). We'll engage with the people behind the team's success and understand their approach to solving business problems.
Zia's application in business
We'll look into our AI-powered virtual assistant's role in business applications. We'll cover Zia's role in various departments like sales, marketing, customer service, HR solutions, and day-to-day operations.
Zia's capabilities in IT
We'll discuss the key features supporting our products and how Zia has enriched our IT management offerings. We'll also talk about how we use AI and ML to manage enterprise IT while ensuring operational security.
ZLabs
Zoho has been deeply involved with AI for well over a decade, experimenting with different processes to improve product capabilities. We started with database research and eventually moved into ML. ZLabs, the research team at Zoho Corp, is the brains behind Zia. Launched in 2015, ZLabs works with product teams to understand how Zoho can retrofit AI into existing applications and incorporate it into upcoming solutions at the foundational level. ZLabs started out with two members and currently has close to 200 members.
ZLabs has a multi-pronged approach for AI research
The ZLabs team spends:
(a) Fifty percent of its time on research:
Since AI and ML are evolving rapidly, the studies published today could be irrelevant after three weeks. It's important to stay updated, especially with generative AI making headlines.
(b) Forty percent of its time on development:
writing code, training models, taking the models to the production phase, and tailoring them for our products.
(c) Ten percent of its time on collaboration:
code reviews and team discussions. The team hosts weekly sessions to discuss use cases, track progress in terms of features sets, and create applications relevant to our operations.
AI at Zoho follows the hub and spoke model. No, we're not referring to our transnational localism strategy. As a technologically diverse company, we have a central team, or hub, to ensure uniform growth within the company. ZLabs functions as the hub to master new ideologies and identifies challenges through collaboration with the spokes, or the product teams, to customize solutions.
Zoho has evolved uniformly as an enterprise through this hub and spoke approach. The focal point for this transformation was shifting from product automation to decision automation. We can validate decisions through prioritizing machine reasoning over mere intelligence. This means we're giving more autonomy to AI and allowing it to handle the decision-making process.