Zoho has launched Zia Hubs, a new feature in its Zoho WorkDrive platform that helps organizations analyze unstructured business data.

This tool is intended to create centralized spaces for project-specific and task-specific content.

Zia Hubs offers features such as unified search and detailed analysis of various types of unstructured data, including emails, documents, and transcripts.

Currently, Zia Hubs is available for early access to Zoho WorkDrive users.

A wider release is anticipated in the third quarter of fiscal year 2025.

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🔗 Source: The Economic Times

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ The massive unstructured data opportunity driving software innovation

Zoho’s launch of Zia Hubs addresses a critical business challenge: most organizational data remains untapped because it exists in unstructured formats like documents, emails, and media files.

According to IDC (cited in the news article), 80% of business data is unstructured, representing a significant blind spot for companies trying to leverage their information assets for competitive advantage.

This move aligns with broader industry projections that show the unstructured data management market growing substantially, expected to reach $52.15 billion by 2030 1.

The timing is strategic as organizations increasingly prioritize tools that can automatically ingest, classify, and derive insights from unstructured data to feed AI applications and decision-making processes 2.

By integrating Zia Hubs directly into WorkDrive, Zoho is addressing the challenge of making unstructured data more accessible for business intelligence without requiring specialized data science expertise.

2️⃣ AI’s evolution from assistive to agentic represents next frontier

Zoho’s description of Zia Hubs as laying “groundwork for a future where intelligent agents can act contextually” signals their alignment with a major shift in enterprise AI development.

This approach matches industry expert predictions about the rise of “agentic agents” in data workflows that can autonomously complete complex tasks rather than just responding to queries 3.

McKinsey research shows that 92% of companies plan to increase AI investments over the next three years, with many specifically seeking solutions that can leverage their existing data more effectively 4.

The transition toward AI agents that can proactively work with company data represents a significant evolution from Zoho’s earlier AI implementations like Zia in their CRM, which focused primarily on sales predictions and basic automation 5.

By emphasizing the unified search and comprehensive analysis capabilities, Zoho is positioning Zia Hubs as infrastructure for more autonomous AI capabilities that align with PwC’s prediction that AI agents will effectively double knowledge worker capacity in coming years 6.

3️⃣ SMEs gain access to enterprise-grade AI capabilities

Zoho’s introduction of Zia Hubs continues their strategy of democratizing advanced technologies for smaller businesses that typically lack resources for custom AI development.

This aligns with their established focus on micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), which account for 90% of global firms and contribute to 50% of global GDP but often struggle with digital transformation 7.

Through initiatives like Zoho Empower, the company has consistently worked to enhance digital literacy and technology adoption among SMEs, providing them with tools comparable to those used by larger enterprises 7.

The incorporation of AI-powered data analysis into WorkDrive represents another step in making enterprise-grade capabilities accessible to organizations with limited IT resources, addressing the “digital transformation need” that Zoho has identified as crucial for smaller businesses to compete 7.

By making Zia Hubs available through their existing WorkDrive platform rather than as a separate premium service, Zoho maintains their approach of offering sophisticated capabilities at price points accessible to smaller organizations.

Recent Zoho developments

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