Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of Zoho Corporation, has criticized companies that have been racing to deploy generative AI technology into their products without ensuring fairness, transparency, and accountability.

“Nobody wants to fall behind in the AI ​​arms race. There’s a rush going on, but that is also limiting the adoption of AI in business. Can you rely on it, and can it be truthful? Take the issue of copyright: it generates some code for you, but what if it lifted the code verbatim from a library whose license is not so permissive? These are the questions that need to be answered,” Vembu told indianexpress.com on the sidelines of the Zoholics event in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday.

For Vembu, it’s not just the job of the company to figure this out and vendors also have a role to play in how the AI ​​tools are deployed at the enterprise level.

Despite all the hype surrounding generative AI, many organizations have yet to make significant investments in the technology. Only 5 percent of companies have mature GenAI initiatives, with 45 percent delaying investment, according to a new research report by Genpact and HFS Research.

Zoho Attendees walking through the vibrant entrance of Zoholics 2024 at the Austin Convention Center in Texas. (Image credit: Anuj Bhatia/The Indian Express)

“Some of these companies, particularly when Microsoft is looking at AI as an extra revenue source, are putting a price on it. I believe AI has to be integrated deeply and contextually. It’s not just a revenue source; it’s an experience, a massively better experience,” Vembu said, emphasizing that we need to find and fit AI into specific contextual spaces.

Festive offer

But as tech giants like Google and ChatGPT creator OpenAI are locked in a race to develop AI technology at scale and companies start to deploy AI tools, policymakers around the world are paying increased attention to artificial intelligence. Some sort of regulation of AI is needed, as voices from different sections have increased over the past few months, but opinions vary widely.

“I think at this point, since we don’t know a lot, we should not over-regulate. We should be watchful,” noted Vembu.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas with international headquarters in Chennai, Zoho is a major SaaS company and a lesser-known rival of Google and Microsoft in the enterprise software space, positioning itself as an affordable alternative to the global giants. Globally, Zoho has over 100 million users across its 55 business applications. Its clients include Amazon, Mercedes-Benz Group AG, SpiceJet, and Zomato, among others. Zoho’s advantage over its bigger rivals is that it does not run ads or sell customers’ data to third parties.

“We are not in the consumer space yet, so we are really not competing with Google. Yes, we overlap in some of the apps, but we are more of a competitor to Microsoft,” Vembu said.

At its Zoholics event, the company announced updates across its collaboration tools portfolio to enhance productivity. The updates include new features across four key collaboration tools—Zoho Projects, Zoho Notebook, Zoho WorkDrive, and Zoho Sign—focused on AI, automation, and industry-specific customizations. Zoho Projects now includes Natural Language Processing capabilities powered by its AI engine, Zia. Users can utilize voice commands for deeper searches across Zoho apps, and Zia can provide task recommendations based on data analysis. These features aim to reduce the time needed to retrieve information and enhance visibility across teams operating asynchronously.

Other key announcements include Zoho CRM for Everyone, which democratises CRM capabilities across all customer operation teams, and an enhanced security stack comprising Zoho Directory, Zoho OneAuth, and Zoho Vault to protect businesses against breaches and attacks. Zoho also introduced new features for its Developer Platform to assist in rapid app development and data-informed roadmap creation.

The writer is in Austin at the invitation of Zoho