Chennai: Zoho has decided to step up its focus on industry-specific, vertical applications, targeting seven sectors, including auto and financial services.The company on Wednesday announced its entry into vertical applications as its artificial intelligence integration has made industry-specific knowledge, workflows, business rules, regulatory requirements and operating context more crucial. It will focus on real estate, restaurants, automotive, financial services, and education, with each offering $20 mn opportunities, it said, citing market research reports.The software-as-a-service (SaaS) company said the vertical-based customised offerings will allow quicker implementations and gain new customers, adding that its general function products (horizontal SaaS) will be key differentiators along with vertical solutions and an AI integration layer.Sridhar Vembu, chief scientist and co-founder of Zoho, said they have built various vertical-specific applications over the years and have now co-created applications with leading industry players. He said they follow a co-create and productise strategy that allows them to customise based on the needs of industry, while scaling them in the market.Zoho has also announced its AI-based conversational chatbot and user interface (UI) for its existing product suite.Vembu said AI large language models are becoming commoditised, while layers on privacy, security, compliance, and understanding structured enterprise data, handling permissions and compute efficiencies are Zoho’s differentiators.“We strip away the UIs of different applications and give employees a single, unified AI interface across the business. Behind the interface problem is a deeper issue, fragmented business context. When information and workflows are spread across multiple applications, AI has only a partial view of the business.Zia Chat brings that information and context together, so users can find information, understand context, and take action across applications through one conversational experience. Business context is also shaped by the workflows, rules and regulatory requirements of each industry. “Our expansion into vertical SaaS brings that industry-specific context onto the same platform,” Vembu added.Zoho said it continues to grow in India, with revenue in the country increasing 47% year over year in 2025. Zoho Workplace, Zoho One, CRM, and Books and People are driving the growth, while ITeS, manufacturing, BFSI, professional services, and retail are among the leading industry sectors contributing to it. Vembu acknowledged the headwinds from war and macro factors and AI spending impacting the margins.
