Zoho Corporation’s co-founder and chief scientist, Sridhar Vembu, has shared fresh insights into how artificial intelligence is reshaping software development inside the company, particularly in user interface (UI) work. His comments offer a grounded, experience-driven view of AI as a productivity booster—one that accelerates engineers’ output without removing human responsibility from the process.

In a post shared on Friday, Vembu explained that Zoho actively uses AI coding tools across teams, but with clear guardrails. “We use AI coding tools across the company, with the caution to engineers that they have to review and approve all the code and take responsibility for it,” he wrote. Importantly, the company does not impose AI usage on its workforce. “We don’t force feed or mandate AI tools, and leave the decision on how best to use AI to experienced engineers,” he added, underscoring Zoho’s trust in individual judgment rather than top-down enforcement.

One of the most striking examples Vembu cited came from a highly experienced engineer with nearly 20 years in the field. The engineer works on complex UI features where performance and efficiency are critical. According to Vembu, the engineer reported that he is now “shipping features that would have taken him 3 weeks of work that he got done in a day.” The dramatic reduction in turnaround time highlights how AI can compress development cycles when paired with deep domain expertise.

However, Vembu was careful to stress that AI does not operate in isolation. “AI needed him to provide the structure, it fleshed out the details and that required him to draw on his experience,” he wrote. In this model, AI serves as a powerful assistant—handling repetitive or time-consuming tasks—while the engineer remains the architect, reviewer, and final decision-maker.

Vembu also pointed to AI’s impact on less experienced engineers. He described a junior team member who built an internal tool with the help of AI, a tool that is now being adopted by multiple teams within Zoho. Quoting the senior engineer, Vembu noted that the team member “could not have built the tool without AI.” This, he suggested, shows how AI can lower barriers to entry, enabling younger engineers to deliver meaningful, production-ready solutions much earlier in their careers.

Based on these real-world experiences, Vembu expressed strong optimism about AI’s future role in UI development. “Overall, for UI work, he is very bullish on AI,” Vembu wrote, reflecting growing confidence that AI-driven workflows will become standard rather than exceptional.

At the same time, Vembu clarified that these observations are separate from his personal research initiatives. “All these are independent of my own research project. Just reporting on our collective experience,” he said, positioning his remarks as an honest snapshot of how AI is already transforming day-to-day engineering at Zoho—quietly, pragmatically, and with humans firmly in charge.