Why Zoho is opting out of the cloud-AI industrial complex

15/09/2025 13 min Episodio 576
Why Zoho is opting out of the cloud-AI industrial complex

Listen "Why Zoho is opting out of the cloud-AI industrial complex"

Episode Synopsis


Most SaaS companies have accepted the “cloud and AI tax” , the cost they pay to Amazon, Google, and Microsoft for storage and processing data. But Zoho is refusing to play along. Famous for its frugality, Zoho is now building its own AI models and data centers to keep costs down for the small and medium enterprises that make up most of its clientele.While rivals lean heavily on third-party clouds, Zoho has bet on a homegrown LLM—Zia—to power its products and stay affordable. But the strategy comes with risks, because building AI from scratch demands huge capital and relentless innovation.Tune in.Compete in India's first and only case competition.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.