Artificial intelligence is reshaping the pace of software development, and Zoho Corporation appears to be experiencing that shift more dramatically than most. In a recent post on X, Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu revealed that AI tools are enabling his engineering teams to deliver work at unprecedented speed — compressing what once took weeks into a single productive day. The remark quickly caught the attention of the tech world, sparking discussions about how deeply AI has been woven into Zoho’s development culture.

Vembu, who stepped down as CEO earlier this year to focus more closely on research and engineering initiatives, has been steadily sharing insights into the company’s technology transformation. His latest comments paint a clear picture of an organisation increasingly powered by seamless AI integration, helping engineers move faster by reducing repetitive or time-intensive tasks.

“AI has effectively let us ship weeks of work in a single day,” Vembu wrote, calling the transition both “exhilarating and transformative.” He also emphasised that Zoho does not impose the use of AI tools 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 said.

To illustrate the impact, Vembu shared an example of a veteran Zoho engineer with two decades of experience who has been working on a performance-critical UI challenge. According to Vembu, the engineer said, “He is now shipping features that would have taken him 3 weeks of work, which he got done in a day. AI needed him to provide the structure; it fleshed out the details, and that required him to draw on his experience.”

This revelation arrives at a time when Zoho is steadily expanding its AI footprint across its vast suite of products. The company’s newly launched Zia Agents platform introduces autonomous digital helpers designed to operate across core business functions such as HR, support, sales and operations. Through Zia Agent Studio, organisations can now build or customise AI agents without specialised technical skills — giving even small teams access to sophisticated automation capabilities.

Zoho Creator, the company’s popular low-code platform, has also evolved with the addition of CoCreator. This AI-powered assistant transforms natural-language instructions into usable app components, workflows or data models, further minimizing the technical barriers for building enterprise-grade applications.

Alongside development tools, Zoho Analytics has been refreshed with generative and predictive intelligence. Businesses can now automate reporting, get contextual recommendations and analyse data conversationally, aligning with Zoho’s broader mission of making advanced analytics accessible without deep technical expertise.

Vembu’s optimism about AI, however, remains balanced. He has openly discussed the risks of increasingly autonomous systems, including a recent anecdote about a startup AI assistant mistakenly leaking confidential acquisition details before issuing its own apology — a cautionary reminder of the imperfections still present in AI workflows.

Despite such incidents, Vembu maintains that AI should complement human creativity rather than replace it. He has repeatedly argued that the world is “nowhere close to” an AI-driven job crisis, saying the real goal should be to empower people by offloading routine work to machines.