Zoho Corporation has launched an upgraded version of Zoho Analytics, its self-service business intelligence (BI) and analytics platform. This release includes over 100 enhancements, among them new AI and machine learning (ML) features designed to enable diagnostic insights, predictive analysis, and automated report and dashboard generation. These updates add significant power, intelligence, and flexibility, making Zoho Analytics more adaptable to a wider range of businesses and user personas compared to competitors.
Zoho Analytics now includes a custom ML model-building studio, seamless integration with OpenAI, and third-party BI platform extensions. The company believes these improvements position Zoho Analytics as a leading platform in the BI market.
Philip Edey, Head of Business Analytics at Arctic Spas, a global leader in all-weather pools and spas, praised Zoho Analytics’ role in the company’s strategic planning.
“Zoho Analytics has played a crucial role in the company, helping us plan strategically and stay ahead of the competition. The platform’s data prep tools ensure that our strategy is guided by accurate, actionable data, which Ask Zia and other AI capabilities can analyze quickly. From there, the platform’s predictive analytics allow us to
forecast future trends accurately, while the new multi-layered mapping feature gives us the ability to visualize our geographical data at multiple levels.
“Whether it’s sales regions or customer demographics, we can now drill down into detailed map views to uncover trends and insights that drive strategic decisions. Developing a new line of spas is a significant undertaking and comes with considerable risk, but Zoho Analytics enables us to innovate and be first to market with great confidence and success,” says Edey.
He added that Zoho Analytics’ predictive analytics and multi-layered mapping features allow for detailed visualizations of geographical data, which help uncover trends and make informed strategic decisions.
Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist for Zoho, reflected on the platform’s evolution.
“Zoho Analytics launched in 2009 as Zoho Reports, long before technology had caught up to Zoho’s vision for business intelligence,” he says. “Since then, Zoho has made considerable investments around automation, no-code/low-code development, third-party integration, machine learning, and Zia, Zoho’s in-house AI engine. The latest version of Zoho Analytics is one of the first solutions from the company that takes advantage of every one of these decades-long investments. The result is a democratized platform that is powerful, intelligent, flexible, and simple to use.”
The new version of Zoho Analytics includes enhancements across four key areas: Data Management, AI, Data Science & Machine Learning (DSML), and Extensibility.
Data Management Hub
Zoho Analytics has expanded its data management capabilities to support more precise decision-making. The platform now includes Stream Analytics and 25 additional data connectors, adding to its 500+ connector portfolio. These connectors provide businesses with access to a central repository of data from a wide range of sources for analysis.
Users can now create and manage complex ETL data pipelines within Zoho Analytics, using a visual builder or the new Python Code Studio for custom transforms and ML models. The platform’s Unified Metrics Layer enables users to define, standardize, monitor, and catalog business metrics in one central location. Zoho Analytics also offers a new Headless BI mode, allowing real-time access to consistent business metrics across different applications.
BI Infused with Generative AI
Generative AI capabilities have been added to Zoho Analytics to provide more efficient and contextual insights. Zia Insights, Zoho’s AI-powered engine, now offers diagnostic analytics to bring decision intelligence into the platform. Ask Zia, Zoho’s Natural Language Querying AI copilot, has been updated to support Spanish and French, and can now interact within IM channels like Microsoft Teams. The platform also features Auto Analysis, which enables AI-powered, automated generation of metrics, reports, and dashboards.
Zoho Analytics’ integration with OpenAI through Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) supports more accurate and relevant query responses. The platform allows users to use OpenAI APIs with BYOK, offering more flexibility in finding datasets and building SQL queries.
Data Science and Machine Learning (DSML) Studio
The new DSML Studio in Zoho Analytics enables users to build custom ML models for tasks such as predicting customer churn. The AutoML feature provides no-code tools for creating ML models with feature engineering, hyperparameter tuning, and model analysis. Code Studio offers an integrated Python environment for users to create custom ML models or import external libraries.
Platform Extensibility
Zoho Analytics now supports a new BI fabric that consolidates insights from other BI platforms, including Power BI and Tableau. This allows businesses to manage and analyze data from multiple BI platforms within one portal. The platform also supports actionable workflows, URL and Webhook actions, and integrates with Zoho Flow to trigger workflows across 500+ apps. Additionally, the platform now includes a no-code data connector builder for custom data integrations.
The latest Zoho Analytics update includes more than 100 new features, such as enhanced visualizations, improved dashboard building, audit controls, revamped mobile apps, and Right-to-Left (RTL) language support.
Pricing and Availability
The new version of Zoho Analytics is available immediately. For more details on pricing, visit www.zoho.com/analytics/pricing.html.
This article, "Zoho Introduces AI-Rich Version of Zoho Analytics, Democratizing Self-Service BI" was first published on Small Business Trends
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