Amid the Indian government’s renewed efforts to promote homegrown tech platforms and reduce dependence on US-based providers, Zoho has unveiled a new AI-powered workplace collaboration platform called Vani.
Its suite of tools are designed to foster visual learning and seamless collaboration for modern teams, particularly small businesses, by letting users co-create mind maps, diagrams, and workflows on an infinite whiteboard with built-in video calling, comments panel, project timelines, DB tables, pre-loaded templates, and more. Generative AI can also be used within Vani for content creation and summarisation tasks across the platform.
With Vani, Zoho is looking to take on foreign players such as Google, Microsoft, and Zoom in the workplace productivity sector. It attempts to differentiate itself with a structured collaboration model that comprises ‘Spaces’ and ‘Zones’. “At its core, Vani runs on three pillars: visualize, collaborate, and execute. It helps your team process complex discussions into clear visuals. Vani reduces cognitive overload, keeps everyone aligned, and helps decisions happen faster with clarity that sticks,” the Chennai-based company said in a blog post last week.
The launch comes just days after the Ministry of Education asked officials to adopt the Zoho Office Suite for managing official documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, “in pursuit of building a self-reliant ecosystem in technology, hardware, and software solutions.” The Ministry referred to it as a “bold step in the Swadeshi movement,” as per an official memorandum issued on Friday, October 3.
In other news, we have launched Vani, which does fresh thinking on team collaboration. We call Vani the all-in-one, visual-first intelligent platform. Vani sparks creativity!
It represents many years of R&D and we already have customers using it and loving it. Please try it with… pic.twitter.com/2mIhMrDBeQ
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) October 2, 2025
“We call Vani the all-in-one, visual-first intelligent platform. Vani sparks creativity! It represents many years of R&D and we already have customers using it and loving it,” Sridhar Vembu, the co-founder and chief scientist at Zoho, said in a post on X. The platform is currently available on desktop and via browser. Vembu said that the mobile version of Vani will be rolled out in “due course”.
List of features and AI-powered capabilities
Vani is pre-loaded with a wide library of ready-to-use templates that are designed for workplace strategy, network planning, social media posts, etc. It also comes with a laundry list of productivity features such as:
– Infinite whiteboard: It is the canvas that offers room to brainstorm, experiment, and build structure with no page limits and no slide decks.
– Mind maps: This feature can be used to identify customer needs, break down new strategies, and plan roadmaps.
– Sticky notes and sketches: For half-formed thoughts or scribbles.
– Diagrams and flowcharts: Users can also use AI to generate flowcharts, decision trees, etc.
– Frames: This feature lets users organise the visual elements into various formats like pages, slides, devices, and social media dimensions.
– Space and Zones: While a Space can be considered to be a folder, Zones represent canvases within that folder. Each Space can hold multiple Zones for both free-tier and paid users to enable real-time collaboration.
– Built-in video meetings: Helps users jump on a video meeting directly from the Vani platform so there is no need to switch tabs.
– Comments, reactions: Users can post textual comments as well as upload messages and leave voice notes. They can also react to messages with a thumbs-up or other emoji reactions.
– Flow: This feature lets users across time zones revisit discussions anytime.
– Cursors, pins, and annotations: Users can pin important items or sketch annotations to highlight something.
– DB tables: “Vani’s DB tables keep project tasks, campaign metrics, and research data structured and always in context, right next to the ideas they support,” the company said.
– Workflows: This feature is designed to let users assign tasks, set deadlines, and track accountability without exiting the Vani platform.
AI is deeply integrated into Vani to help users visualise, collaborate, and execute tasks faster, smoother, and more efficiently, Zoho said. For instance, generative AI is used to provide summaries of Spaces, Frames, or any element within a Space. It can also be used to instantly generate mind maps, flowcharts, and other content.
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While Vani is integrated with other products developed by Zoho, it also reportedly lets users pull in documents, workflows, and data from third-party apps. Additionally, Spaces and Frames can be exported and shared with secure links.
In terms of pricing, Zoho is looking to cater to small-to-mid-sized teams with simple onboarding of users. The Zoho Workplace package starts at Rs 399 per month and comes with 1 TB of pooled storage and 100 GB for every additional user as well as 1000-participant limit for online meetings, as per the company’s official website.
Promotion of ‘Swadeshi’ products
The launch of Vani comes against the backdrop of the central government’s strongest campaign yet for ‘Made in India’ products amid trade tensions with the United States. In August this year, the Trump administration announced a 50 per cent tariff on Indian imports. That same month, in his Independence Day address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for the development of indigenous social media platforms and technology solutions across sectors.
More recently, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw delivered a presentation on highway projects that he said was put together employing Zoho’s Workplace tools. Vaishnaw also posted a video of himself testing out Zoho software and further asked Indians to adopt indigenous products.
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Besides offering cheaper alternatives to productivity tools by Google and Microsoft, Zoho recently launched an instant messaging app called Arattai to take on WhatsApp in the country.
Since its launch, Arattai, which translates to ‘chat’ in Tamil, has witnessed more than 4,00,000 downloads with daily active users crossing 1,00,000 on September 26, as per data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. However, Indian social media platforms have found it difficult to sustain growth in the past. In 2021, several government ministers and officials had similarly promoted X-rival Koo, which shut down last year due to lack of funding.
