Chennai: Enterprise software provider Zoho on Wednesday launched an AI-powered platform for schools, colleges and universities as the Chennai-headquartered company expanded its push into vertical SaaS.
The company also told Mint it is working on an education-focused large language model that could eventually support the platform.
Zoho will offer it free to central and state government educational institutions as well as individual teachers handling up to 100 students, while private institutions will pay for the software.
Last year, Zoho chief executive Mani Vembu had outlined the company's plans to focus on industry-specific software for sectors such as education, healthcare and financial services, arguing that vertical SaaS would drive the next phase of growth for enterprise software.
"Education is one of the primary sectors that we want to focus on. Zoho Classes is one of our vertical offerings, and we see it evolving into a broader platform for educational institutions, going well beyond a traditional learning management system," said Dev Anand Ramasamy, vice president of product management at Zoho.
Zoho launched the first version of Classes in response to the covid-19 pandemic as a free tool that enabled schools to conduct online classes and manage assignments. Feedback from teachers, educational institutions and government bodies convinced the company that there was demand for a more comprehensive platform, while advances in AI created an opportunity to reimagine the product, said Ramasamy. The company plans to roll out Zoho Classes in international markets in the coming months.
AI in education
The launch also reflects how AI is reshaping the education software market. Ramasamy said unlike traditional learning management systems that have largely focused on hosting course material and classroom communication, Zoho Classes uses AI for everything from lesson planning and automated course creation to grading assistance, AI tutoring, and student lifecycle management.
Zoho is also working on an education-specific version of its in-house language model for the platform. Last year, the company unveiled Zia LLM, the language model it built primarily for enterprise applications across its software portfolio. Ramasamy said education requires a different model trained for academic workflows and curriculum-specific use cases.
"Our LLM was primarily built for business-oriented data. We are working with the team to make it an educational model. That requires some extra time, but we (Classes) will definitely support Zoho LLM in the future," he said. Until then, the platform will continue using multiple AI models depending on the application.
The platform also supports AI-generated content across all 22 scheduled Indian languages, enabling teachers to create lesson plans, question papers, and assessments directly in regional languages rather than relying on translation.
India presents one of the world's largest opportunities for education software. The country's school education system serves about 246.9 million students across nearly 1.47 million schools, supported by about 10.1 million teachers, according to the 2024-25 data from the government’s Unified District Information System for Education Plus. Higher education enrolment has also reached 44.6 million students, according to the all-India survey on higher education 2022-23, reflecting the scale of institutions that are increasingly adopting digital tools.
However, Zoho is entering a market dominated by global learning management platforms such as Google Classroom, Moodle, Canvas and Blackboard, as well as Indian players including Teachmint, Classplus and Lead Group, which have built products focused on classroom management, digital learning and school administration.
Zoho said it is currently working with three state governments, although it declined to name them as onboarding is still underway. It is already working with private educational institutions like Chennai-based SRM Institute, Sishya School and Chettinad Health City.
The education push also fits into Zoho's broader India strategy. Over the past two years, the company has steadily expanded its presence across government departments and institutions in India. In 2025, the National Informatics Centre selected Zoho Workplace, including Mail, WorkDrive, Writer, Sheet, Show and Meeting, as the collaboration suite for central government departments.
More than 1.1 million government accounts have since been migrated to the platform. Last year, Zoho's messaging app Arattai also received a surge in downloads after being publicly endorsed by Union ministers as part of a broader push for indigenous software.
For Zoho Classes, the test now will be adoption. While AI has created an opportunity to rethink classroom software, convincing institutions to standardize on a new platform will be a challenge.