When form follows function, agentic AI works for businesses 

In the rush to deploy AI, many businesses are experimenting with tools that sound impressive but fail to deliver sustained value. Nowhere is that clearer than in the ambiguity surrounding the term “agent.”

Across the tech sector, “agent” has become a catch-all applied to everything from natural language chatbots to general-purpose copilots.

“The most beautiful AI is when you don’t realize it’s AI doing the thing.”

Chandrashekar LSP, Zoho

Zoho is taking a firmer stance.

Through its Zia platform, the software company is building a defined class of AI agents meant to operate inside real businesses with clear roles, limited scope, and measurable outcomes.

According to Managing Director of Zoho Canada Chandrashekar Lalapet Srinivas Prasanna, who goes by LSP, there are three defining traits that make an AI agent useful and sustainable: specificity, accountability, and interoperability.

“A lot of repetitive tasks can be simplified with software,” LSP said. “But agentic AI takes it to the next level.”

Do one thing well

Zoho doesn’t believe in general-purpose agents. Each of its Zia Agents is designed to do one thing well, grounded in the context of a specific business function.

Whether it’s managing churn, tracking account activity, or summarizing customer interactions, Zoho’s agents are designed to act—rather than merely respond—behind the scenes with minimal user input.

“These are very business-specific agents,” LSP said, which automate the tasks businesses are already doing. “What is important here is not the instruction taking. What is important here is the business context.”

For Zoho’s Canadian customers like Chris Rickett, Principal at The Local Option, that ability to work within real-world processes makes the technology useful.

“Municipalities need AI that cuts through red tape and connects the dots—across systems, departments, and data,” Rickett said. “From permits to license renewals, Zoho’s AI agents can bring workflows together to reduce delays and unlock better data.”

Make it governable

Specificity doesn’t work without guardrails. Each Zia Agent Zoho creates is assigned its own identity within Zoho’s directory system, just like a human user. That identity governs what the agent can access, where it can act, and what its outputs touch.

“You really have to treat agents as individuals with permissions and access,” LSP said. “This is a very critical piece that a lot of people are missing.”

He likens Zia Agents to “digital employees,” not because they’re meant to replace people, but because they must be auditable. “They need to have permissions and access control rights,” he added. “Today, that does not exist, and that is a part of what we are focusing on.”

Without secure, compliant solutions in place, public institutions like municipalities risk handing over data to third parties without oversight. 

“Zoho’s in-house AI gives governments a safer path forward, enabling innovation while protecting data sovereignty,” Rickett added. “It’s smart adoption and responsible governance in action.”

Connect the dots

Even well-defined agents can falter if they operate in isolation. Today, most businesses run a patchwork of software tools, each with its own siloed intelligence, which LSP argues severely limits what agents can do.

“Unless you connect the dots, there is no meaning,” he said. “Without context, an independent system saying it has agentic AI is of no consequence.”

Zoho’s strategy hinges on its fully integrated stack, spanning more than 60 apps across customer relationship management, human resources, finance, communications, and operations. Zia Agents don’t need to be patched into that environment because they’re already native to it.

“We’ve always believed in an integrated business operating system,” he said. “AI is not going to be groundbreaking for Zoho, it’s just the cherry on top.”

Wire it for the work

Zoho embeds agents directly into its software. This allows them to fit into work that’s already happening. Each one is tailored to a real task, grounded in context, and able to act with minimal friction.

AI, as LSP sees it, isn’t the centerpiece of its product suite. It’s an extra layer, applied carefully, where it can improve the rhythm of daily work without disrupting it.

“The most beautiful AI is when you don’t realize it’s AI doing the thing,” LSP said.

PRESENTED BY

Zoho’s Zia Agents are engineered to simplify and amplify the work done across the world’s largest suite of business apps. Learn more.

Feature image by Zan Lazarevic via Unsplash.