Zoho has upgraded its business intelligence platform, Zoho Analytics, with agentic artificial intelligence capabilities designed to help businesses move beyond conventional data reporting towards context-aware analysis, automated workflows and more informed decision-making.
The technology company said the enhanced platform integrates business data, organisational context, analytical insights and operational actions into a shared intelligence layer, enabling AI agents to interpret company information and support activities across analytics tools, business applications and operational processes.
Unlike traditional business intelligence tools that primarily present dashboards, reports and historical performance indicators, the upgraded Zoho Analytics is designed to enable AI agents to interpret business terminology, understand relationships between operational activities and recommend or initiate actions within defined governance controls.
Kehinde Ogundare, country head of Zoho Nigeria, said reliable business intelligence would become increasingly important as companies incorporated AI agents into their operations.
“We are at the beginning of the next leap forward in data analytics, where a strong data foundation is the starting point for all agentic activity in business operations,” Ogundare said.
“Agents, however, cannot function only with data, but require a robust intelligence layer. Today’s updates to Zoho Analytics provide that and more: one open and extensible trusted intelligence layer that gives every AI tool in your business the context, metrics, and governance to deliver answers users can rely on,” he added.
Central to the upgrade is Ask Zia, Zoho’s conversational business intelligence assistant, which now uses a multi-agent architecture to coordinate specialised agents across data analysis, visualisation, preparation, modelling, coding and workflow actions.
The arrangement allows users to progress from asking questions about business performance to developing analyses and building workflows through a single interface, while preserving the context of their original requests.
The system uses conversational history, agent memory as well as semantic and ontology layers to improve the relevance of AI-generated responses.
The semantic layer functions as a business glossary, standardising definitions, metrics, terminology, synonyms and instructions. The ontology layer maps business entities and their relationships, allowing AI agents to interpret how different functions and activities within an organisation connect.
By embedding these capabilities directly into Zoho Analytics, the company said businesses could establish and manage their business models without deploying a separate data platform or cloud data warehouse.
Organisations can also build custom agents grounded in their own datasets, business models and knowledge bases, with connections to external tools and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers.
Expanding enterprise data integration
Zoho is also extending the platform’s ability to consolidate information from multiple business applications, adding more than 30 data connectors to its existing collection of more than 500.
The new integrations include Zoho ERP, Zoho Spend, Zoho FSM, Zoho Shifts and Zoho Voice, as well as third-party platforms such as SAP, PayPal, Adobe Commerce, Twilio, Notion, Intercom, Supabase, Amazon DocumentDB and AlloyDB.
The expanded connectivity is intended to help businesses analyse information across finance, sales, customer service, human resources and other operational functions without treating each application as an isolated source of intelligence.
Companies can establish multiple semantic models for different operational contexts, allowing finance, operations and other departments to use definitions and performance metrics suited to their respective responsibilities.
The platform also introduces tools for connecting insights with business processes through a workflow builder and contextual action triggers. These capabilities allow organisations to configure AI agents to initiate relevant actions after identifying an issue or opportunity.
Such functionality moves the platform towards a model in which analytics can support not only the identification of business problems but also the execution of defined responses.
The upgraded platform also allows intelligence generated through Zoho Analytics to be used outside its native environment.
Developers and AI agents can access analytics functions through the Zoho Analytics MCP server, which supports data analysis, preparation and visualisation. Other additions include a command-line interface and access to Zoho Analytics from within Claude through a dedicated plug-in.
The company is also offering white-label capabilities that allow organisations to embed AI agents in their own applications, customer portals and products while retaining permission and governance controls.
To address concerns around data access and the management of AI-driven processes, Zoho Analytics includes administrative tools for monitoring agent activity, enforcing access policies and tracking AI usage.
Its data catalogue brings together information on datasets, metrics, analytics assets and models, supporting data lineage, impact analysis, search and the administration of data-access policies.
AI observability tools allow administrators to monitor which agents have run, who has used them, what information they have accessed and how they have responded to queries. The platform also supports monitoring AI usage and costs across teams, alongside administrative controls for managing Ask Zia’s behaviour.
Sandbox and deployment management capabilities allow teams to develop and test analytics assets and agents in controlled environments before releasing them into production. Previous versions can be restored when necessary.
These controls are intended to give businesses greater visibility into how AI systems interact with company information and operational processes, an increasingly important consideration as organisations move from experimental AI deployments towards wider adoption.
New analytical and reporting tools
Beyond the agentic AI features, Zoho Analytics has added more than 50 capabilities, including over 10 new visualisations, custom visuals and pixel-perfect reporting.
The update also includes predictive analytics tools such as scenario analysis, a correlation matrix and a VARX forecasting model, as well as a data science studio incorporating Jupyter notebooks, PMML import and additional analytical functions.
Ask Zia is also available on mobile through an upgraded interface, extending access to conversational analytics beyond desktop environments.
Zoho said its analytics platform is used daily by 100,000 businesses worldwide. The product is available through Zoho Cloud, on-premises installations, public cloud infrastructure including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, as well as hybrid deployments.
The company plans to expand the platform further with dynamic business context that changes alongside business data, decision intelligence to inform future AI-driven activities, and additional investment in open standards and interoperability.
Longer-term plans include developing a more unified data platform that combines data integration, preparation, business context, analytics, data science, packaged business models and agent development across the Zoho ecosystem.
Pricing remains unchanged
Despite the expanded capabilities, Zoho said it would maintain existing Zoho Analytics pricing. The plans now include Zoho LLM credits.
The Basic plan starts at N18,480 per month when billed annually, covering two users, 500,000 rows of data and 10,000 Zoho LLM credits.
The cloud version’s updates are available now, while preview versions of pixel-perfect reporting, ontology and the semantic model are scheduled for global rollout over the following four to eight weeks. Updates to the on-premises edition are expected in the first quarter of 2027.
Zoho also reiterated its privacy policy, stating that it does not rely on advertising revenue, including for its free products, and that it owns and operates its data centres to maintain oversight of customer data security and privacy.
The company said more than 150 million users across over one million paying organisations worldwide rely on its products, including Zoho itself.
