In a post on X, he warned that AI could significantly change workforce requirements.
Vembu pointed out that one person using AI could potentially perform work previously handled by 10 people.
“The risk is getting ever more real. This does not mean 90 per cent of people working on a computer will have no work at all. Industries that previously could not afford to hire software engineers or digital marketers could afford them now, for example. What it does mean is a rebalancing across the economy and that is painful when we go through it. The only thing we can do is to accept that it is coming and be prepared for it,” he said.
Sometime ago, Vembu had warned that business outlook for software is uncertain and AI has raised costs dramatically.
He had said Zoho has frozen pay hikes and will work hard to avoid mass layoffs. Zoho has not been adding headcount for 18 months now.
Meanwhile, Zoho on Thursday said it has upgraded its business intelligence platform, Zoho Analytics, with a new intelligence layer that connects business data, context and AI-driven action, enabling organisations to move from data analysis to automated workflows.
The company said the upgrade introduces semantic and ontology layers to help AI understand business metrics, terminology and organisational structures. Its Ask Zia system uses six specialised AI agents for data analysis, modelling, visualisation, data preparation, coding and SQL generation, enabling users to handle complex requests through a single prompt and automate workflows.
“The business intelligence industry is undergoing a fundamental transition from traditional human-driven analysis to intelligent orchestration,” said Clarence Rozario, Director of Product Management, Zoho BI and Analytics Platform.
“The true promise of Agentic AI lies in executing complex workflows with absolute precision. However, to trust an AI agent with operational decisions, it must inherently understand an enterprise’s unique metrics, hierarchies, boundaries, and business vocabulary, he added.