Zoho boosts global SMB growth with new AI-driven features
Zoho has reported a 40% year-on-year increase in global small business customers for the first half of 2025 and is releasing expanded features across its suite of business solutions aimed at supporting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).
According to Zoho, demand for scalable, affordable, and integrated technology tailored to small businesses underpins this growth. The company's expanded toolkit is focused on productivity, revenue optimisation, and streamlined operations for customers, allowing them to keep their attention on business growth and future opportunities.
Continued growth in SMB sector
"Small businesses are expected to be nimble, high-performing despite limited resources, and adaptable to the frequently changing headwinds of business environments. We have been delivering enterprise technology accessible to small businesses at consumer price points for three decades. As a technology partner, we keep businesses ahead by future-proofing them with advances in technologies through broad-ranging tools," said Chandrashekar LSP, Zoho Canada's Managing Director.
To support these businesses, Zoho is releasing significant updates across six of its main SMB solutions: Bigin by Zoho CRM, Zoho Commerce, Zoho Solo, Zoho Contracts, Zoho Start, and Zoho Notebook. The new features are designed to address issues such as productivity bottlenecks, operational pain points, and revenue generation challenges.
Enhancements for revenue optimisation
Bigin by Zoho CRM, the company's unified platform for managing customer relationships and sales, has received an array of updates. The latest version comes with built-in booking management capabilities as well as integrations with Quickbooks Online, Shopify, over ten payment gateways including Stripe and PayPal, and existing support for Zoho Books and Zoho Payments. The platform now includes on-device artificial intelligence (AI) assistance for mobile apps powered by Gemini Nano, Apple Intelligence, and Galaxy AI, and supports lead capture from services such as Google Ads, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Meta Ads.
Additional features scheduled for release in the coming months will include integration with Zoho MCP to allow Bigin accounts to connect with large language models such as Claude for contextual data analysis, access to Zia AgentStudio to build custom AI agents, three prebuilt AI agents (Reply Assistant, Cross-sell Genie, and Churn Analyser), and automated creation of charts and dashboards powered by Zia. AI-powered writing assistance, live translation, record summaries, and dashboard creation will also be included.
Zoho Commerce, which forms part of Zoho's broader Finance platform, continues to provide businesses with storefront management capabilities. New features allow businesses to sell digital downloads alongside physical goods, implement customer loyalty point programmes, and recover lost revenue from abandoned shopping baskets. Stores can be established faster thanks to more than 15 new templates, and new native mobile applications are available for both iOS and Android devices. Social selling is now possible across multiple channels, including WhatsApp, and businesses serving B2B and wholesale clients can manage quote requests, undertake price negotiations, and set credit limits directly through the system. The solution continues to support end-to-end lifecycle management and workflow automation for retailers.
For independent professionals, Zoho Solo has added support for timesheets, notes, reminders, mileage tracking, event management, financial reporting, and card scanning. The tablet-optimised app, which unifies business functions such as client management, invoicing, payments, and reporting, will shortly receive additional features such as multi-currency support, inventory management, and AI-driven insights to further drive revenue.
Operational improvements through automation
Zoho Contracts, used to manage contract lifecycles, now integrates more deeply with Zoho CRM and features expanded digital signature capabilities, support for multiple organisations, integration with ChatGPT, and the ability to manage contracts initiated by external parties. The addition of an AI assistant provides guidance at every contract stage. The platform facilitates streamlined approvals, online negotiations, and includes templates and built-in e-signatures for quicker contract turnaround.
Productivity updates in Zoho Notebook
Zoho Notebook, which allows teams to centralise information, has expanded its feature set to support SMBs seeking to organise documentation and streamline communication. Shared workspaces, a graphical whiteboard, and contextual integrations with other solutions in the Zoho ecosystem support collaboration. The new AI-powered functionality - Notebook AI, running on Zoho's Zia engine - adds AI transcription to automatically convert audio into structured notes, AI mind mapping for visual summaries, AI writing assistance, smart tagging, and voice search and translation features. Zoho plans to introduce meeting notes intelligence, integration with Bigin, and deeper CRM links in Notebook in future releases.
Approach to artificial intelligence and privacy
Zoho states that its approach to artificial intelligence is focused on customer privacy and practical value. Its AI models are designed to process contextual insights without training on consumer data or retaining customer information. AI models are tailored to balance usability with cost efficiency for consumers.
The company continues to emphasise its privacy commitments, with full ownership and operation of its data centres and no ad-driven revenue across its product portfolio, including free services. Zoho underlines that more than 125 million users across hundreds of thousands of companies rely on its technology daily, including internally within Zoho itself.