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Zoho Launches Zia LLM and Deepens AI Portfolio with Prebuilt Agents, Custom Agent Builder, MCP, and Marketplace

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Homegrown, Business-Optimized Technology Addresses Needs for Developers and End Users While Enhancing Platform Capabilities

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 28 July 2025 – Zoho Corporation, a global technology company, announced additional investments and offerings in AI, including Zia LLM, a proprietary large language model; Zia Agents, with 25+ ready-to-deploy AI-powered agents available in Agent Marketplace; Zia Agent Studio, a no-code agent builder; and a model context protocol (MCP) server to open up Zoho’s vast library of actions to third-party agents. These capabilities and investments are designed to help organizations fully realize and maximize the value of contextual, assistive and agentic AI technology. Immediately impacting daily workflows for diverse roles and use cases, Zoho’s latest AI developments deliver operational and financial efficiencies across entire organizations.

The Zia Agent studio is now fully prompt-based. Agents built by users can be deployed autonomously, triggered through button click or rule-based automation, or summoned within customer conversations.

“Zia LLM is a unique Enterprise LLM, this investment furthers Zoho’s longstanding aim to build foundational technology focused on protection of customer data, breadth and depth of capabilities, and value,” says Gibu Mathew, VP and GM of Zoho APAC. “Because Zoho’s AI initiatives are developed internally, we are able to provide customers with cutting-edge tool sets without compromising data privacy and organizational flexibility, democratizing the latest technology on a global scale. For businesses, AI needs data integration at a DNA level, the Zoho platform is built with exactly that future and vision.”

Zia LLM, Built from the Ground Up and Optimized for Business

Zoho has launched its own large language model, Zia LLM, built completely in-house by leveraging NVIDIA’s AI accelerated computing platform. Trained with Zoho product use cases in mind—ranging from structured data extraction, summarization, RAG, and code generation—Zia LLM is comprised of three models with 1.3 billion, 2.6 billion and 7 billion parameters, each separately trained and optimized for contextual applicability that benchmark competitively against comparable open source models in the market. The three models allow Zoho to always optimize the right model for the right user context, striking the proper balance between power and resource management. This focus on right-sizing the model is an ongoing development strategy for Zoho.

In addition to Zia LLM, Zoho is announcing two proprietary Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models for speech-to-text conversion for both English and Hindi. Optimized to perform on a low computer load without compromising on accuracy, the models benchmark up to 75% better than comparable models across standard tests. Language support for additional languages will be coming in the future.

While Zoho supports many LLM integrations for users, including ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek, Zia LLM continues Zoho’s commitment to data privacy by allowing customers to keep their data on Zoho servers, leveraging the latest AI capabilities without sending their data to AI cloud providers.

Zia LLM will be deployed across Zoho’s data centers in the US, India, and Europe. The model is currently testing for internal use cases across Zoho’s broad app portfolio, and will be available for customer use in coming months.

Effective Native AI Agents Ready for Use

To enable immediate adoption of agentic technology, Zoho has developed a roster of AI agents contextually baked right into its products. These agents can be used across various business activities, handling relevant actions based on real-life organizational roles (including sales development, customer support, and account management).

Agents available today include:

  1. New Version of Ask Zia: The latest version of Zoho’s platform-wide conversational AI assistant, Ask Zia‘s new BI skills are tailored to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists, yet supports any user within an organization. Ask Zia is now equipped with capabilities that directly address the unique pain points faced by each persona, whether it’s building end-to-end data pipelines for engineers, analyzing data, creating reports and dashboards in an interactive conversation mode for analysts, or helping to jump start building ML models for data scientists.
  2. Customer Service Agent: With the ability to process incoming customer requests, understand the context behind them, and either answer them directly or triage them to a human rep, the Customer Service Agent for Zoho Desk provides an efficient yet reliable first line of assistance, paving the way for quicker responses and resolutions.

AI Agent Studio and Marketplace

First announced earlier in 2025, Zoho has further simplified the Zia Agent Studio experience to be fully prompt-based (with the option to use low-code) and include ready-made access to over 700 actions across Zoho’s products. Agents built by users can be deployed autonomously, triggered through button click or rule-based automation, or summoned within customer conversations.

At the time of deployment, an agent can also be provisioned as a digital employee. Digital Employees respect defined user access permissions, maintaining the same permissions structures already defined within the organization. Admins are able to perform behavioral audits as well as performance and impact analyses on Digital Employees, ensuring that every agent is working as effectively as possible and within clear guardrails.

Zoho Marketplace, which supplies over 2500 reliable extensions and integrations for Zoho users, now houses the Agent Marketplace, a dedicated section for AI agents that can be deployed by customers quickly. Ecosystem partners, ISVs, and individual developers will soon be able to create agents and host them on the Zia Agents Marketplace, further simplifying the adoption of agentic technology by organizations.

Some pre-built agents created with Zia Agent Studio (and available on the Zia Agent Marketplace) are:

  1. Revenue Growth Specialist: Uncovers opportunities for upsell and cross-sell across existing customers, recommending the best marketing approach for each customer.
  2. Deal Analyzer: Analyze deals and provide insights such as win probability, next best action, and follow-up suggestions.
  3. Candidate Screener: Intelligently identifies and ranks the most suitable candidates for a specific job opening based on role requirements, skills, experience, and other key attributes.

Zoho will continue to add more pre-built agents to the Agent Marketplace over time to cover several valuable core and utility use cases across various business functions. The full list of available agents can be found under Additional Documentation.

With over 55 applications across one ecosystem, users can build agents to meet their organization’s every need, no matter how specific. With Zia Agent Studio, Zoho users have access to the same tools as Zoho’s developers, ensuring that any agent a customer dreams of can be created with ease.

Interoperability with MCP

Zoho has adopted the model context protocol (MCP), offering its own MCP server with a rich action library across several applications, allowing any MCP client to tap into data and actions from various Zoho apps while respecting the customer’s defined permission structures.

Zoho’s MCP server has a library of actions from more than 15 Zoho applications exposed during Early Access. With Zoho Flow, third party tools are also exposed. Additional Zoho applications will be onboarded in the coming months. Furthermore, Zoho Analytics now offers support for a local MCP server.

Roadmap

In the short term, Zoho will regularly scale Zia LLM’s model sizes, starting with the first of several planned parameter increases by the end of 2025. Future planned releases include expanding the available languages used by the speech-to-text model, beginning with languages spoken primarily across Europe and India, as well as the introduction of a reasoning language model (RLM).

Additional skills will be added to Ask Zia, allowing it to act as an assistant to Finance teams and Customer Support teams, with more skills added in the future.

Support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol will be implemented, allowing for Zia Agents to interact and collaborate with each other, as well as collaborate with agents on other platforms.

Additional Documentation

Zia Agent Marketplace – Full list of available agents at launch

Disclaimer

All trademarks, product names, and company names cited herein are the property of their respective owners.

Availability and Pricing

Zia LLM will be available to Zoho customers in the coming months. Zia Agents, Zia Agent Studio, Agent Marketplace, and Zoho MCP Server are being rolled out to customers who are currently on the early access waiting list. General availability for these offerings is expected towards the end of 2025. Zoho expects to study the usage patterns of these customers across use cases, industries, geographical regions, and sizes during this early access phase. A pricing structure for these offerings can be expected at the time of general availability.

Zoho Artificial Intelligence Differentiation

Zoho is committed to designing and incorporating artificial intelligence guided by the principles of customer privacy and value. Our generic AI models across contextual, assistive, and agentic AI, are not trained on consumer data and do not retain customer information. Zoho builds AI tools with usefulness in mind, striking a balance between providing AI technology that assists workers while right-sizing models that don’t require burdening consumers with additional costs.

Hashtag: #zoho


The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About Zoho

With 55+ apps in nearly every major business category, Zoho Corporation is one of the world’s most prolific technology companies. Zoho is privately held and profitable with more than 18,000 employees globally with headquarters in Austin, Texas and international headquarters in Chennai, India. Zoho APAC HQ is located in Singapore. For more information, please visit:

Zoho respects user privacy and does not have an ad-revenue model in any part of its business, including its free products. The company owns and operates its data centers, ensuring complete oversight of customer data, privacy, and security. More than 100 million users around the world, across hundreds of thousands of companies, rely on Zoho everyday to run their businesses, including Zoho itself. For more information, please visit:

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A First in the Asia-Pacific – Taiwan Leads the Launch of the Early Kidney Disease Annual Report, Opening a New Era in Advancing Kidney Care

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TAIPEI, TAIWAN – Media OutReach Newswire – 11 December 2025 – Taiwan’s chronic disease care is once again at the forefront internationally, taking new strides with the release of the Asia-Pacific’s first “Early Chronic Kidney Disease Annual Report,” jointly published by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the National Health Research Institutes, and the Taiwan Society of Nephrology. This report not only comprehensively covers the information on various stages of chronic kidney disease but also provides timely and internationally relevant data that has garnered high attention from the Asia-Pacific medical community.

Domestic and international leaders gathered at the launch ceremony of the 2025 Early CKD Annual Report Press Conference, symbolizing the formal release of the first early kidney disease annual report in the Asia-Pacific region and showcasing Taiwan’s international leadership position in precise kidney care. From left to right are:

  • Yung-Ho Hsu, Secretary General of the Taiwan Society of Nephrology
  • Shang-Jyh Hwang, Honorary President of the Taiwan Society of Nephrology
  • Masaomi Nangaku, Immediate Past-President of the International Society of Nephrology
  • Marcello Tonelli, President of the International Society of Nephrology
  • Mai-Szu Wu, President of the Taiwan Society of Nephrology
  • Chung-Liang Shih, Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare
  • Ching-Fen Shen, Director General of the Health Promotion Administration, Ministry of Health and Welfare
  • Chih-Cheng Hsu, Professor at the National Health Research Institutes
  • Hyeong-Cheon Park, President Elect of the Asia Pacific Society of Nephrology
  • Rajnish Mehrotra, President of the International Society of Peritoneal Dialysis

The complete and immediate analysis aids in reversing the past trend where most patients were diagnosed at late stages and required dialysis, ushering in a new era of early detection and treatment. Minister of Health and Welfare, Chung-Liang Shih, stated at a press conference that this annual report serves as a new engine for promoting precise care, integrating complete data and risk classification indicators for Early CKD P4P(Pay for Performance) and Pre-ESRD P4P. This fills the gap in early kidney disease data and strengthens the quantitative basis for policy and clinical decision-making, facilitating early intervention and delaying disease progression. The goal is to achieve the Healthy Taiwan Policy target of reducing the standardized mortality rate for chronic diseases by one-third by 2030, and for Taiwan’s care model to become an example in the Asia-Pacific, establishing a sustainable and precise new framework for kidney care.

The early kidney disease annual report reveals several key trends. According to KDIGO risk classification, the proportion of high-risk and very high-risk patients in the P4P program has gradually decreased in recent years, reflecting a shift in treatment strategies toward early intervention and prevention. This trend not only highlights the medical team’s emphasis on the care of early-stage chronic kidney disease patients but also helps delay disease progression and reduce the incidence of later-stage complications. In terms of controlling the “three highs” (hyperglycemia, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia), data shows that approximately 80% of patients meet lipid targets and nearly 60% maintain stable blood sugar levels. However, only about 30% meet the target for blood pressure below 130/80 mmHg, indicating significant challenges remain in blood pressure control. The “three highs” are important risk factors for the progression and deterioration of chronic kidney disease, making it crucial to further improve control rates. The implementation of the P4P program has already shown preliminary results, and there are expectations for more immediate, comprehensive, and rigorous data collection and tracking, which will more fully demonstrate the long-term benefits of this care model.

Data-Driven: Taiwan’s First Early Kidney Disease Annual Report Fills Care Gaps

Professor Chih-Cheng Hsu from the National Health Research Institutes pointed out that past domestic kidney disease care has primarily focused on dialysis and end-stage disease, with limited understanding of early stages and delayed updates on data. This annual report breaks through traditional reporting frameworks and represents the first integration of complete data and risk classification indicators for Early CKD P4P and Pre-ESRD P4P. Utilizing big data for in-depth analysis, it outlines the disease progression and comorbidity trends of patients at different risk levels, successfully filling the long-term gap in early kidney disease care. He noted that grasping information on early stages of disease helps clinicians intervene earlier and delay deterioration while providing quantitative evidence for health policies to promote proactive and timely kidney care strategies, enhancing Taiwan’s international competitiveness in precise health governance.

Early CKD P4P and Pre-ESRD P4P are two phased quality-based reimbursement programs promoted by the National Health Insurance Administration, addressing key care needs for early chronic kidney disease and pre-dialysis patients, respectively. Early CKD P4P primarily targets patients in CKD stages 1-3a, aiding healthcare institutions in early identification of kidney deterioration risks through disease tracking and integrated care models, providing personalized management. Pre-ESRD P4P focuses on patients in CKD stages 3b, 4-5, enhancing control of complications, medication, and nutritional management while utilizing data feedback to support treatment decisions, aiming to delay dialysis and improve care efficiency. Both programs link the complete processes from early prevention to pre-dialysis intervention, contributing to improved overall CKD care quality and patient long-term prognosis.

Precise Kidney Care: Holistic and Continuous CKD Care as a Model for Chronic Disease

Taiwan centers its approach on “precise care,” continuously optimizing the integrated chronic kidney disease care system to implement policy blueprints in clinical practice. Director General of National Health Insurance Administration, Lian-Yu Chen, mentioned that Taiwan has progressively refined various measures, from educational programs for pre-end-stage renal disease patients to integrated care plans for early chronic kidney disease. The medical team can adjust personalized treatment strategies based on patient risk classification and clinical data, strengthening disease management and follow-up effectiveness for early-stage patients. She indicated that by integrating and providing feedback across units, care gaps could be minimized to ensure that patients receive consistent medical services across different levels of care. Director General of Health Promotion Administration, Ching-Fen Shen, remarked that grassroots health education and community health advocacy go hand in hand to enhance public awareness of kidney health. Years of efforts have significantly slowed the deterioration of early kidney disease progression, with patients participating in integrated care exhibiting a lower future risk of dialysis compared to those who do not participate, showing tangible effectiveness of the Taiwan model.

Policy Linkage and Sustainable Vision: Achieving the Healthy Taiwan Goals and Leading the New Landscape of Asia-Pacific

In response to the government’s “Healthy Taiwan” policy, Taiwan is implementing a preventive kidney care model based on the Early CKD P4P and Pre-ESRD P4P systems and the Early Kidney Disease Annual Report. President of the Taiwan Society of Nephrology, Mai-Szu Wu, stated that investing in early chronic kidney disease management not only contributes to health sustainability but also reduces waste of medical resources, achieving dual benefits of health outcomes and environmental sustainability, assisting the government in its goal to reduce chronic disease mortality by one-third by 2030.

During the Asia-Pacific Nephrology Conference (APCN) held in Taipei this year, the Asia-Pacific’s first Early Kidney Disease Annual Report was officially unveiled. President of the International Society of Nephrology, Marcello Tonelli, and Immediate Past-President , Masaomi Nangaku, along with the President Elect of the Asia Pacific Society of Nephrology Hyeong-Cheon Park and Honorary Secretary Sunita Bavanandan attended as witnesses, attracting experts from South Korea, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Additionally, various important domestic academic societies, including the Taiwan Academy of Family Medicine, Taiwan Society of Cardiology, the Diabetes Association of the Republic of China (Taiwan), the Taiwan Association of Clinical Diabetes, and the Taiwan Medical Clinics Association also participated and supported the event. Minister Chung-Liang Shih expressed gratitude for the collective efforts and emphasized that this kidney annual report showcases Taiwan’s leading position in medical data integration and clinical evidence, hoping that real-time and comprehensive data analysis will once again showcase Taiwan’s precision care model to the international community, working together with other countries to create a new global framework for chronic kidney disease prevention and treatment.

Hashtag: #TaiwanSocietyofNephrology

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The Government of Angola Launches an International Public Tender for the Management of the Namibe Corridor

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LUANDA, ANGOLA – EQS Newswire – 12 December 2025 – The Ministry of Transport of The Republic of Angola (www.MinTrans.gov.ao) has today launched, 5th December, the Public Tender for the Concession of the Right to Operate, Manage and Maintain the Namibe Corridor. Interested entities may submit their proposals until 4 May 2026.

The concession, with an initial duration of 30 years, extendable up to 50 years, covers the operation, management, maintenance and preservation of the Moçâmedes–Menongue Railway Line, including rolling stock, associated infrastructure, workshops and the training centre. It further encompasses the possibility of designing and constructing new sections, extensions and branch lines, as well as railway connections to the Republic of Namibia and, at a later stage, to the Republic of Zambia.

The Secretary of State for Land Transport, Jorge Bengue, noted at the launch event that the process constitutes a strategic opportunity for international operators with a proven track record in the railway sector. “The Namibe Corridor has the potential to strengthen Angola’s role as a regional logistics platform, enhance supply chains, foster new investments, and increase the competitiveness of exports. We anticipate a dynamic tender process with strong participation from established industry operators,” he stated.

Jorge Bengue further emphasised that Angola has carried out structural reforms in recent years that have strengthened legal certainty and created a more competitive business environment. The success of the concession of the Lobito Corridor has demonstrated the country’s capacity to implement partnership models that stimulate private investment and accelerate the modernization of transport infrastructure.

Individual companies or consortiums of competitors with proven experience in the management of railway infrastructure and freight operations are eligible to apply. The detailed technical and financial requirements are set out in the tender documents, which are available for a fee of USD 20,000, or the equivalent in kwanzas at the exchange rate of the National Bank of Angola at the time of the transaction.

The Namibe Corridor encompasses the Moçâmedes Railway, with a total length of 855 km, and the Port of Namibe, forming a strategic logistics axis for the export of minerals, ornamental stones, agricultural products, and other goods. The infrastructure allows for a theoretical capacity of up to 5 million tonnes per year, serving as a connection point for landlocked countries in the region, in coordination with the Lobito and Walvis Bay corridors.

This corridor also contributes to tourism development and regional integration, strengthening Angola’s position in Atlantic–Indian trade routes and consolidating the country as a significant commercial hub within the African context.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Ministry of Transport of Angola.

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Caption: The official launch of the Public Tender, presided over by the Secretary of State for Land Transport, Jorge Bengue

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VinFast VF 8 – Crafted for high-expectation markets in the GCC

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Premium design meets industry-leading warranty and long-term support

DUBAI, UAE – Media OutReach Newswire – 12 December 2025 – The Middle East’s electric vehicle market is still developing but advancing quickly. In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, EV sales penetration doubled from about 2 per cent to roughly 4 per cent in just one year, placing the region among the fastest-growing EV markets globally. 91% of battery-electric vehicle owners here say they plan to buy another EV, above the global average of 87%.

Amid that backdrop, buyers are seeking vehicles that match or exceed the space, performance, and refinement expected from premium SUVs. VinFast VF 8 arrives as a direct response to these elevated expectations, combining sophisticated design, robust capability, and a comprehensive ownership framework built around long-term confidence.

The VF 8 is shaped by VinFast’s “Dynamic Balance” design philosophy, a deliberate interplay between flowing curves and precise, angular lines that creates a sense of energy and visual structure without sacrificing harmony. This design language feels both contemporary and enduring. The result is a vehicle that projects presence without aggression, offering an aesthetic that balances boldness with sophistication, qualities that resonate with Middle Eastern consumers who view their vehicles as reflections of personal standards.

Under the sculpted exterior lies engineering tuned for high-demand regional driving. The VF 8 Plus variant delivers all-wheel drive with up to 402 horsepower and 620 Nm of torque, accelerating from 0 to 100 kph in under 5.5 seconds. This translates to confident overtaking on high-speed highways, assured merging in dense urban traffic, and the capability to handle extended cruising. Range reaches up to 493 km (NEDC) in the Eco configuration, a practical threshold aligned with intercity travel patterns across the region.

The 15.6-inch infotainment display provides intuitive access to navigation and vehicle settings. Crucially for the region, dual-zone climate control paired with ventilated seats are essential features designed to maintain cabin comfort even during peak heat.

The VF 8 integrates a comprehensive suite of smart systems designed to reduce driver workload. Traffic Jam Assist manages stop-and-go driving in congested environments, easing the fatigue of gridlock. Highway Assist supports sustained motorway cruising, helping drivers maintain lane position during long-distance travel. These systems work together to create a driving experience that feels more secure and less demanding.

Where the VF 8 truly distinguishes itself is in VinFast’s approach to long-term ownership. Addressing anxieties around battery longevity and service maturity, VinFast offers what may be the industry’s most comprehensive warranty structure. The VF 8 comes with a 10-year/200,000-km vehicle warranty and a 10-year unlimited-kilometer battery warranty, and 5-year/100,000-km of free service, eliminating one of the primary concerns of electric vehicle ownership. It’s also supported by practical service infrastructure: mobile service capabilities bring maintenance to customers’ locations, while 24/7 roadside assistance ensures support is available whenever needed.

The VF 8 represents VinFast’s understanding that success in sophisticated markets like the GCC requires vehicles that genuinely align with how people live, drive, and make long-term decisions. For Middle Eastern buyers navigating the transition to electric mobility, the VF 8 offers confidence in all aspects: design, performance, comfort, and warranty support. From the first drive to years down the road, it’s an electric vehicle crafted to deliver peace of mind alongside capability.

Hashtag: #VinFast

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