Zoho Analytics – Version 6 Release

Zoho (www.zoho.com), a multinational software and web-based business tool provider, has announced the new release of their analytics platform.

The new version 6.0 – launched on Sep 12, 2024 – builds upon strong existing foundations: user-friendly self-service BI, including data preparation and management, multicloud (Azure, AWS, or Google Cloud) and on-prem deployment options, as well as versatile visual delivery means and the ability to embed analytical solutions into other applications. The platform uses natural language processing AI that supports English, Spanish, French.

The new release was designed to address the challenges faced by many organizations:

• Increasing data velocity and diversity
• The need for integrated data management and governance
• Complex analytical needs
• Diverse user needs with limited user adoption of a truly data-driven culture
• Rapid technology changes

Insight: It’s no longer enough to know what has happened or what could happen – we need to know why it has happened or would happen. And the explanation must be data-driven (not a guess) and business-friendly (not too technical).

Zoho describes the offering as an “AI-powered self-service BI and analytics platform for all.” The key areas of improvement are:

• A powerful data management hub
  • Add stream analytics, a visual data pipeline builder, and data transformations defined by natural language.
  • Enable headless BI to deliver centrally-defined, reusable metrics.
• Generative-AI infused analytics
  • Answer the “why” with smart key-driver analysis presented as AI-composed narratives available in three languages.
  • Provide OpenAI API integration and RAG-based augmentation.
• Data science and machine learning (DSML) studio
  • Create automated ML models with no-code assistant.
  • Create custom Python-based ML models from scratch.
• Platform extensibility
  • View reports and dashboards produced by different BI tools (e.g. Power BI, Tableau) in a single portal.
  • Enable no-code data connector builder

Image by Zoho ©

Analyst Perspective

Zoho’s new platform seems to have everything one would expect from a modern BI and Analytics platform. The sophistication of the new analytical capabilities reinforce Zoho’s unwavering commitment to being business-friendly – without any compromises. Business users can create complex analytical solutions without writing any code and data scientists can code in Python – all within the same integrated environment. AI-powered data preparation makes typically tedious work easy and enjoyable – and you can use this module as a stand-alone data management tool. The platform helps decision-makers not only see “what, when, and how” but also explain “why” something has happened or is about to happen.

Zoho’s strategy seems to aim at making it easy for their customers to create traditional BI and advanced analytical solutions on the same platform, providing a no-code design solution for business users and writing-from-scratch opportunities for coding geeks. Zoho’s platform can be deployed on any cloud or on premises with the same capabilities. As well, users do not have to make a hard choice about their AI provider – Zoho has created an API framework enabling seamless connection to any external AI, LLM, or other technology provider. The headless BI approach enables users to create KPI computations once and use them in any application. Finally, if you have several BI and analytics platforms, you can view them all in one harmonized portal – no need to jump between various interfaces and bookmark numerous links. The promise of so much freedom and so wide a range of capabilities makes Zoho version 6.0 a really interesting product and definitely something to take a closer look at.