How Zoho is Democratising Self-Service BI with the Launch of AI-Rich Version of Zoho Analytics

Zoho Corporation, a leading global technology company, on Thursday launched a new version of Zoho Analytics, tagged Zoho’s self-service BI and analytics platform.

Among more than 100 other enhancements, Zoho Analytics has developed powerful new AI and ML capabilities, enabling diagnostic insights, predictive analysis, and automated report and dashboard generation.

Additionally, Zoho Analytics now includes a custom ML model-building studio, seamless integration with Open AI, 25+ new data connectors, and third-party BI platform extensions.

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The latest version has added power, intelligence, and flexibility to serve a broader range of businesses and users than competitors in the market.

Recent research from Oracle reveals that 97% of business leaders want data to drive their decision-making processes. Additionally, a Gartner study predicts that by 2026, two-thirds of B2B sales organisations will shift from intuition-based to data-driven decision-making.

“Zoho Analytics, launched as Zoho Reports in 2009, entered the market long before technology had caught up with Zoho’s forward-thinking vision for business intelligence,” said Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria.

“Since then, Zoho has made considerable investments around automation, no-code/low-code development, third-party integration, machine learning, and Zia, Zoho’s in-house AI engine.

“The latest version of Zoho Analytics is one of the first solutions from the company that takes advantage of every one of these decades-long investments.

“The result is a democratised platform that is powerful, intelligent, and flexible enough to benefit everyone and anyone.”

The latest version of Zoho Analytics has advanced across four key areas: Data Management, AI, Data Science & Machine Learning, and Extensibility. Below are notable highlights of the platform across these four categories.

Data Management Hub

Zoho Analytics has expanded its data management capabilities, adding Stream Analytics, ETL data pipelines, and metrics-layer enhancements to ensure broader access to more accurate data for businesses.

It has expanded its 500+ data connector portfolio by adding Stream Analytics, along with 25 other new data connectors. Business users can now create and manage complex ETL data pipelines within the platform. New Unified Metrics Layer enables users to define, standardise, monitor, access control, and catalogue all business metrics in a single pane.

The platform also extends to serve in a Headless BI mode, allowing data apps to consume the same metrics in real time for consistent and dependable insights.

BI Infused with Generative AI

Zoho Analytics has introduced Generative AI capabilities across the BI platform to accelerate the adoption of insights for a broad spectrum of user personas. With Zoho’s AI-powered, automated insights engine, Zia Insights, now provides diagnostic analytics contextually, bringing decision intelligence into the platform.

Ask Zia, Zoho’s multilingual Natural Language Querying AI copilot, has been enhanced, allowing users to trigger actions and build custom data models. Users can now converse with Ask Zia within IM channels, including Microsoft Teams, to generate deeper, faster, and more contextual insights and actions. Zoho Analytics now has Auto Analysis, enabling AI-powered automated metrics, report, and dashboard generation.

Zoho Analytics’ seamless Open AI integration drives more relevant and accurate query responses. Using Open AI APIs with BYOK, users can more easily find public datasets and create formula & SQL queries.

Data Science and Machine Learning Studio

Zoho Analytics now features the Data Science and Machine Learning (DSML) Studio, supporting users to build custom machine learning models for specific business requirements. With AutoML, a no-code assistant, to build custom ML models easily. With ‌feature engineering, hyperparameter tuning, and comprehensive model analysis, it enables users to ‌train, test, compare, deploy, and manage models.

Zoho Analytics also features Code Studio, the platform’s new integrated Python code environment where users can create custom ML models, as well as import Python models or externally built libraries, which can be executed within the platform.

Platform Extensibility

Zoho Analytics is more deeply extendable, adding new capabilities such as its no-code builder for data connectors, actions framework, BI fabric, and client SDKs. It is a composable platform on which any analytical solution can be built. Its new BI fabric enables businesses to consolidate insights from multiple BI platforms, such as Power BI and Tableau, onto one, easily accessible and searchable analytics portal.

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Within Zoho Analytics, users can trigger actionable workflows, including URL and Webhook actions. The platform integrates seamlessly with Zoho Flow, enabling 500+ app triggers. It features a no-code data connector builder, allowing users to create custom connectors to bring data from any custom application. Partners can also build data connectors that can be published and sold on Zoho Marketplace.

The new Zoho Analytics release features over 100+ updates, including new visualisations, enhanced dashboard building, audit and admin controls, revamped mobile apps, Right-to-Left (RTL) support, and more.

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