Zoho’s Vani Platform: A Visual-First Approach to Team Collaboration, Challenging Google Workspace

In a move to bolster homegrown technology, Zoho has unveiled Vani, an AI-powered platform focused on visual collaboration. The platform is tailored for modern teams, especially small businesses, and offers tools for co-creating mind maps, diagrams, and workflows on an expansive whiteboard. Vani includes integrated video calling, comment functionalities, project timelines, DB tables, and pre-loaded templates. Generative AI capabilities are integrated for content creation and summarization. Vani is built around three main tenets: Visualize, Collaborate, and Execute. These elements help teams to translate intricate discussions into clear, visual formats. The platform’s release comes shortly after the Ministry of Education’s directive to utilize Zoho Office Suite. Vani boasts features such as an infinite whiteboard, mind maps, sticky notes and sketches, diagrams and flowcharts, DB tables, and a workflow system. These features are aimed at improving productivity, strategic planning, and network organization within workplaces.