Business Ideas and Inspiration

Zendesk is taking a significant step toward transforming the customer service landscape with its proposed acquisition of Forethought, a move that positions the company as a leader in what executives are dubbing the “agentic service era.” According to Zendesk, by the end of 2026, artificial intelligence (AI) agents are expected to handle a majority of customer service interactions, surpassing human agents. This shift offers small business owners powerful new tools, but it also comes with inherent challenges they need to consider. Key Benefits for Small Businesses The integration of Forethought’s AI capabilities into Zendesk’s existing Resolution Platform enables business…

At a time when customer service expectations are at an all-time high, Zendesk recently announced a Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Amazon Web Services (AWS) aimed at transforming contact center operations with advanced AI integration. Small business owners should pay close attention to this partnership, as the initiatives unveiled may have a profound impact on enhancing customer interactions without the need for extensive operational overhaul. By integrating Amazon Connect’s voice capabilities, conversational analytics, and sentiment analysis into the Zendesk Contact Center platform, this collaboration offers small businesses a streamlined solution designed …

Zendesk has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Local Measure, a provider of Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) and advanced voice solutions. The acquisition, expected to close in May 2025, aims to enhance Zendesk’s AI-powered voice capabilities and deepen its integration with Amazon Connect, Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) cloud contact center solution. Strengthening AI Voice and Enterprise CX According to Zendesk, this acquisition is part of its broader strategy to expand into larger and more complex service environments. “Voice is one of the most personal and powerful ways businesses connect with their customers and employees, and managing it at…

ZeroBounce has released its Email Statistics Report for 2025, providing insights into email user behavior to help marketers optimize engagement. The report, based on a survey of 985 participants across four continents, details how individuals interact with their inboxes and what influences their email preferences. According to the ZeroBounce survey results, 93% of respondents check their email daily, with 42% doing so three to five times per day. While 35% of users spend less than an hour managing their inbox, another 35% dedicate between two and five hours each day to email. The survey highlights that email remains a crucial tool for both personal and professional comm…

Artificial intelligence has often felt out of reach for many small businesses—too complex, too costly, and too disconnected from the tools they already use. Zoho Corporation is aiming to change that. The company announced a wave of new “agentic AI” features across its collaboration, customer experience, and human resources apps—tools designed to help businesses save time, work smarter, and make AI a practical part of daily operations. The updates, which include Zoho’s workplace suite (Mail, Cliq, Sheet, and Tables), are available at no additional cost to current users. Zoho says the goal is to remove the “adoption friction” that has slowed small business AI use by embedd…

If your small business sees clients and customers by appointment, scheduling becomes your lifeblood. So it may surprise you to learn that 72.83% of U.S. small businesses still primarily use email to set appointments. Never mind the fact that more sophisticated options like Zoho Bookings offer a way to drastically improve scheduling for small businesses of all kinds. “Despite the growth of scheduling tools, legacy methods continue to dominate across SMBs,” explains a new survey created by the Zoho Bookings team. “Email threads and phone calls remain the default, even as more efficient alternatives become increasingly accessible.” Say Goodbye to Email Scheduling Ima…

Business communications and collaboration face big changes and a software tool from Zoho leads the way. Zoho Cliq changes the way teams communicate and work together even at great distances. “Zoho Cliq is a part of the Unified Communication and Collaboration stack. It basically helps teams work together more efficiently by integrating all your communication and collaboration needs into one platform,” explains Shanthana Lakshmi S, Senior Marketing Analyst for Zoho Cliq. How Technology Forces Changes in Communications and Collaboration One big change involves how close in proximity team members need to be in physical space. Take a look at this example. You come into th…

From customer experience to collaboration, security to content management, Zoho leads the way in AI for business. Recently the company discussed closing another AI gap, this time in finance. “Many people don’t take full advantage of our customization capabilities, even with very good low code, no code features,” says Prashant Ganti, Head of Finance Platform, Zoho. AI makes these customizations easier than ever before. Where You Need AI in Finance AI customization in the Zoho Finance and Operations Platform runs the gamut from invoice creation to reconciliation and anomaly detection. An important caveat must be considered here. AI in the Zoho ecosystem does not appear…

Zoho Corporation is making another major move to simplify how small businesses adopt and use artificial intelligence — this time by embedding “agentic AI” directly into its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and Human Resources tools at no extra cost. The announcement, aims to remove one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption among small and midsize businesses: complexity. By integrating these intelligent assistants into everyday apps, Zoho wants to make AI feel less like an add-on and more like a natural part of daily operations. For small business owners who have struggled with limited budgets or technical expertise, Zoho’s latest updates could level the playing fiel…

Zoho has unveiled a significant expansion of its AI capabilities within its Finance and Operations Platform, promising to transform the way small businesses manage their financial tasks. With automation, enhanced insights, and predictive analytics, these new features aim to streamline operations for finance teams, ultimately leading to better decision-making and efficiency. At the heart of these enhancements is Zia LLM, Zoho’s proprietary large language model designed specifically for business applications. This innovative technology not only improves operational efficiency but also prioritizes data privacy, a crucial factor for small business owners managing sensitive f…

Zoho Corporation has launched Zoho Payments, a unified payment solution designed to help businesses manage online payments seamlessly through native card and ACH capabilities. With support for over 135 currencies and integrations across Zoho’s ecosystem, the new product allows companies to centralize and streamline their financial workflows. “As digital payments become the default preference for everything from online purchases to subscription services, businesses need a payment solution that not only offers flexibility, but is also tightly connected to their financial operations,” said Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho. “Zoho Payments closes this gap by natively co…

Zoho Corporation has expanded its customer experience (CX) platform with deeper AI and workflow orchestration capabilities, powered by its proprietary AI engine, Zia. The enhancements aim to eliminate barriers to CRM adoption across business functions and make customer data more accessible and actionable for all departments. “Multiple people in an organization need access to customer information, yet historically, CRMs have been relegated to only sales teams,” said Mani Vembu, CEO, Zoho. “As we democratize CRM with the launch of CRM for Everyone, we also need to build in capabilities that make it easy for anyone to build and extend CRM with simple prompts, without having…

Zoho is pushing deeper into AI-driven operations with a wide set of upgrades to Zoho One, its all-in-one business software platform, giving small business owners more ways to automate tasks, surface information instantly, and reduce time spent switching between apps. The company announced the enhancements today from Austin, positioning its expanded Zia AI tools as a way for organizations of all sizes to centralize intelligence and turn scattered data into clearer, faster insight. For small business owners who rely on multiple cloud services—from Google Workspace to accounting, CRM, HR, and project tools—the promise of unified intelligence stands out. Instead of digging t…

Zoho Corporation has announced the launch of ten new features and services within Zoho Creator, its low-code application development platform, aimed at simplifying and speeding up business app creation. The latest additions include an AI-powered assistant, CoCreator, and a suite of contextual AI tools designed to streamline every phase of the app development lifecycle. These updates are now available to all users at no additional cost. The enhancements reflect Zoho’s broader commitment to incorporating artificial intelligence in practical, privacy-respecting ways that drive real-time value for business users. CoCreator, powered by Zoho’s AI assistant Zia, allows users to…

Zoho Corporation has announced the release of Notebook AI, an AI-powered note-taking assistant now available on iOS, Android, web browsers, and macOS. Users can activate a 15-day trial to explore the app’s features before purchasing, with pricing set at $4.99 per month or $49.99 per year for individual consumers. The company also plans to roll out Notebook AI to Notebook Business users within the next month at no additional cost to Business plan subscribers. Notebook AI integrates a suite of artificial intelligence tools designed to enhance note-taking, organization, and content creation. The app includes features such as content generation, translation, transcription, a…

Zoho Corporation announced the release of Ulaa Enterprise on May 14, 2025, a new enterprise-focused version of its privacy-first web browser. Ulaa Enterprise is designed to meet the security and visibility needs of enterprise organizations by offering protection at the browser level without relying on third-party integrations or complex virtual environments. “The shift to cloud-based software has made the browser the largest attack surface inside an organization, yet no software vendor has been able to produce a secure browser that strikes the correct balance between depth of policy controls and straightforward usability,” said Raju Vegesna, Chief Evangelist at Zoho. “Ul…

For small businesses constantly juggling communication across tools, documents, and meetings, Zoho’s newest product aims to simplify how teams work together. The company has launched Vani — an intelligent visual collaboration platform that turns brainstorming, planning, and execution into one seamless, shared experience. Vani introduces a visual-first workspace designed to replace the patchwork of apps that small businesses often rely on for project management, whiteboarding, and communication. Instead of hopping between spreadsheets, slides, and chat threads, teams can collaborate on what Zoho calls an “infinite canvas” — a digital space where ideas, data, and discussio…

Zoho Corporation has unveiled a game-changing solution for larger businesses aiming to streamline their financial operations and enhance budget management. The newly launched Zoho Spend integrates essential functions such as payroll, accounts payable (AP) automation, corporate travel, employee expenses, and procurement into a single, user-friendly platform. This innovative offering is poised to transform how finance leaders manage company expenditures as they scale. Zoho Spend addresses a critical gap in spend management by consolidating various financial processes that are often managed through disparate systems. According to the company, many organizations struggle wit…

Zoho is marking its 30th anniversary with a milestone meant to signal stability in a fast-changing software market: the company says it has surpassed one million paying customers and 150 million users globally, following what it describes as 32% year-over-year customer growth and 20% revenue growth in 2025. For small business owners juggling rising costs, staffing constraints, and more complex operations, the announcement reinforces a familiar question: does it make more sense to run on a connected suite of tools—or to stitch together specialized apps and hope the integrations hold? Zoho Corporation—whose portfolio includes Zoho, ManageEngine, Qntrl, and TrainerCentral—p…

Small business owners relying on Zoho One to run daily operations will soon see tighter security, smoother app management, and more unified workflows across their software stack. Zoho Corporation announced a wave of enhancements to its all-in-one business platform, strengthening its native integrations and introducing tools designed to reduce complexity for growing teams. For many small businesses, maintaining a cohesive tech stack is an ongoing challenge. Disconnected apps create security risks, slow down processes, and force owners to manage multiple logins, data sources, and support channels. Zoho’s latest updates focus on removing those friction points by delivering …

Project managers, rejoice! Zoho just introduced an application to usher in a bright new future for what you do. On March 11, 2025, Zoho revealed its new unified AI-driven project management platform Projects Plus. “Zoho Projects Plus is basically a collaboration of hybrid project management,” explained Zoho senior evangelist Aarthi Elizabeth. “One is your traditional projects and the other is your agile methodologies.” “It then brings in data analytics as well,” Elizabeth added. For many businesses, this constitutes a game changer. Think about the possibilities. Zoho’s current Projects software sees greatest use amongst businesses in construction, manufacturing, bank…

Artificial intelligence may be the future of work, but for many small businesses, adopting it has been easier said than done. Zoho is looking to change that with new, no-cost AI upgrades built directly into its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and Human Resources software. These updates mark another step in Zoho’s broader strategy to make “agentic” AI — software that acts autonomously to complete tasks — accessible to organizations of all sizes. The company says the enhancements are designed to eliminate major barriers that have slowed AI adoption, such as high costs, fragmented tools, and a steep learning curve. For small business owners, the updates could mean a pr…

Small businesses continue to grapple with the challenge of managing scattered apps, disconnected workflows, and rising software costs. Zoho is betting it can solve that problem at scale. The company announced a major update to Zoho One—its unified business operating system—and the changes focus heavily on reducing friction, centralizing information, and making collaboration more intuitive for teams that can’t afford complexity. For small business owners already juggling multiple responsibilities, these updates aim to streamline operations by bringing apps, data, and communication into a single, customizable workspace. Zoho frames the enhancements as a way to help organiz…

Scan, edit and share receipts and other business documents and free yourself from piles of paper. Zoho Scanner enables this and more. The company recently upgraded the software formerly called Zoho Doc Scanner with some truly remarkable features. Consider switching to Zoho Scanner now as Microsoft Lens closes down shunting customers to Microsoft 365 Copilot. But first, look at what Zoho’s scanning option offers. “It’s a smarter way to scan and share your documents, receipts or whatever it may be and it also provides a way where the scanned documents are available across all your devices,” says Ashok Ramamoorthy, Director of Product Management for Zoho Scanner. Use Z…

Artificial intelligence has long promised to streamline business operations, but many small businesses have found the reality to be complicated, expensive, or out of reach. Zoho Corporation wants to change that. The company announced a broad rollout of new agentic AI tools—embedded directly into its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and Human Resources apps—to help businesses save time, reduce repetitive work, and improve decision-making. Perhaps most notably, these upgrades come at no extra cost, a move that could make advanced AI more accessible to small and midsize companies struggling to adopt it. Zoho’s announcement centers on simplifying AI adoption through autom…