Analyst(s): Ron Westfall
Publication Date: February 11, 2025
What is Covered in this Article:
- Zoho’s Zia Agents initiative extends to its recently launched Zoho IoT platform strategy that focuses on providing a low-code IoT platform that enables businesses to develop and deploy custom IoT solutions efficiently.
- In-house AI has evolved over the past decade from proactive to prescriptive to generative to agentic.
- Zoho is strategically committed to developing its AI portfolio capabilities to further augment the Zoho IoT platform.
The News: Zoho Corporation announces expanding the scope of Zia with the announcement of Zia Agents, Agent Studio, and Agent Marketplace. The AI platform is developed to support autonomous agents across the organization’s broad portfolio.
Zoho Analyst Day 2025: Zoho Readies Agentic AI to Elevate IoT Proposition
Analyst Take: Zoho conducted its Zoho Analyst Day 2025 at the Horseshoe Bay Resort in the greater Austin, TX area spotlighting the expansion of the scope of its platform Zia with the debut of Zia Agents, Agent Studio, and Agent Marketplace. Together, these solutions are built to empower enterprises to access, build, and distribute intelligent, autonomous digital agents across their organizations.
Accordingly, Zoho and ManageEngine will be previewing pre-built, task-specific Zia Agents, which will deploy across Zoho Corporation’s combined portfolio of 100+ products in the coming weeks. Zoho is gradually releasing these agents to a limited set of customers, with new agents becoming available monthly.
Zoho’s Zia Agents initiative extends to its recently launched Zoho IoT platform. Zoho’s IoT strategy focuses on providing a low-code IoT platform that can enable businesses to develop and deploy custom IoT solutions efficiently. Launched in September 2024, Zoho IoT emphasizes offering a user-friendly and scalable platform including key capabilities such as:
- Customizable solutions. The platform can enable businesses to build tailored IoT applications without extensive technical expertise.
- Industry-specific solutions. Zoho IoT currently provides pre-built solutions for industrial IoT, smart buildings, energy management, and connected OEMs.
- Real-time data processing and analytics. The platform supports collection and management of IoT device data, providing intelligent insights and streamlined operational analysis.
- Integration capabilities. Zoho IoT integrates with Zoho’s ecosystem of applications and is compatible with third-party hardware, allowing for flexible scaling and incorporation into existing systems.
AI Plays Starring Role in Zoho IoT Vision
At the event, I had the opportunity to get an update on Zoho’s IoT portfolio from Praveen Kumar, Senior Marketing Manager, in a 1:1 meeting. One key takeaway is that Zoho is strategically committed to developing its AI portfolio capabilities to further augment the Zoho IoT platform. This includes Zoho focusing on developing vertical-specific AI solutions to address unique industry needs. Today, Zoho provides targeted IoT solutions for:
- Industrial IoT
- Smart Buildings
- Energy Management
- Connected OEMs
Through AI capabilities, including Zia Agents, Zoho Solution Accelerator frameworks can be reused to expedite the development and deployment of specific IoT solutions. This includes templates, hardware, software, and best practices that can be implemented as is or extended for further customizations.
To help spur adoption of Zia Agents, Sridhar Vembu, Co-founder & Chief Scientist of Zoho, advocates that charging a premium for AI agents may not be sustainable in the long run, refusing to nickel and dimes customers on key AI capabilities developed by the company and indicating that Zoho’s AI offerings will not charge for every aspect of AI. From my point of view, this approach can prove a competitive advantage and help catalyze customer integration of Zia agents.
AI-enabled security can help the Zoho IoT platform optimize the implementation of robust security measures, including end-to-end encryption and secure device authentication, to ensure data privacy and compliance with global standards. This addresses a major IoT ecosystem concern as over 27 billion IoT devices will be in use by 2025, creating an extensive attack surface for cybercriminals. Specifically, 33% of organizations are concerned about attacks on IoT devices impacting critical operations (according to Thales Group).
Zoho IoT Provides Implementation Agility to Customers
Moreover, the Zoho IoT platform is built to integrate with other Zoho applications such as CRM, Analytics, and Creator, offering a comprehensive solution for IoT-powered business strategies. The low code, drag and drop features alongside multi-protocol (i.e., MQTT, CoAP, BACnet, Modbus, SigFix, Zigbee) multi-brand, and multi-network support are easing the adoption process for customers and expediting trials. In fact, the platform supports over 40 protocols in total, making it highly versatile for connecting different IoT devices and systems.
Zoho IoT can integrate with an array of third-party applications in addition to the Zoho suite of apps, enabling businesses to augment and potentially automate workflows and boost efficiency. The platform supports API integration, cultivating communication between diverse devices, platforms, and services for efficient data exchange through third-party APIs.
I anticipate that Zoho will continue to make progress across its sales channels in advancing Zoho IoT adoption. Currently, the overall sales cycle, including the training of systems integration partners to support the platform, is around six to eight months on average. This includes developing natural language GenAI chatbot capabilities that can further minimize the complexities and time constraints related to the ongoing integration of the Zoho IoT platform.
Additionally, Zoho needs to tighten its vertical sales and marketing messaging to incorporate its IoT platform capabilities. I find that such an approach can sharpen its vertical market vision alongside providing an ecosystem-wide channel boost for the Zoho IoT proposition.
Looking Ahead
Zoho already has 30+ customers using its IoT platform with a robust pipeline expected throughout 2025. These early inroads are testament of Zoho’s ability to execute on its key strategic priorities such as Zoho IoT. Overall, I believe Zoho can use its proven engineering prowess alongside its shared data model and own data centers to drive innovation across its entire portfolio including Zoho IoT. As such, Zoho becomes positioned to develop AI-enhanced solutions that can drive customer value including the optimization and full security of IoT assets that improve business outcomes and overall experience.
See the complete Zoho press release on the Zoho site.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
Other insights from The Futurum Group:
Zoho Launches Low-Code IoT Platform with Industry-Specific Solutions
Qualcomm Ready to Usher in the Age of Industrial Intelligence
Qualcomm, Ericsson, AT&T Moves Shine Spotlight on IoT – Six Five Webcast: The 5G Factor
Author Information
Ron is an experienced, customer-focused research expert and analyst, with over 20 years of experience in the digital and IT transformation markets, working with businesses to drive consistent revenue and sales growth.
He is a recognized authority at tracking the evolution of and identifying the key disruptive trends within the service enablement ecosystem, including a wide range of topics across software and services, infrastructure, 5G communications, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), analytics, security, cloud computing, revenue management, and regulatory issues.
Prior to his work with The Futurum Group, Ron worked with GlobalData Technology creating syndicated and custom research across a wide variety of technical fields. His work with Current Analysis focused on the broadband and service provider infrastructure markets.
Ron holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy from University of Nevada — Las Vegas and a Bachelor of Arts in political science/government from William and Mary.
