Artificial intelligence has become the backbone of modern business operations. From finance teams reconciling thousands of transactions to sales teams automating customer outreach, AI is everywhere. But with explosive adoption comes a critical question: who bears the risk when things go wrong?
Zoho Canada, which operates a suite of over 60 cloud-based business tools across North America, is pushing back against what it sees as an industry-wide trend of passing AI risks onto customers.
The AI Paradox That's Putting Businesses at Risk
"Generative AI introduces a paradox," says Chandrashekar Lalapet Srinivas Prasanna, Managing Director of Zoho Canada. "It promises efficiency, yet it often pushes technical and operational risk back onto the customer."
The numbers tell a compelling story. Zoho's AI-powered tools processed 16 billion API calls in the first half of 2025 alone—a 50 per cent jump year-over-year. Yet despite this explosive growth, major AI developers continue to publicly acknowledge they cannot guarantee their outputs will be error-free.
This represents a fundamental break from how traditional software works. When a business buys enterprise software, vendors assume responsibility for reliability. If something breaks, the vendor fixes it. But with AI, that contract has quietly shifted. Companies are increasingly getting experimental tools with disclaimers attached.
"We're doubling down on being a system of record, not a collection of AI features."
Zoho's Three-Part Approach: Own It All, or Own Nothing
Zoho's response is straightforward: if you're going to embed AI into your product, you need to own every layer of it—from the underlying data infrastructure to the final application interface. That's the only way to take genuine responsibility for outcomes.
Unlike competitors who bolt third-party AI models onto their platforms, Zoho built and owns Zia, its proprietary large language model. This means the company controls what Zia can do, what data it trains on, and crucially, what happens when something goes wrong.
"[Our customers are] operating inside a platform where we take responsibility for reliability, auditability, and outcomes," Prasanna explains. "In other words, we don't hand customers experimental tools and wish them luck. We operationalize AI inside the core system so the risk stays with us, where it belongs."
One Platform, One Operating System, One Source of Truth
The practical result of this philosophy is Zoho One, the company's refreshed core platform that now functions as an integrated operating system. Instead of forcing teams to jump between multiple applications—one for sales, another for finance, yet another for customer service—AI is embedded directly into every workflow.
"Instead of moving between apps, the work comes to the user," Prasanna says. "Tasks, data, conversations, and agents all converge in a single operational environment. It's a fundamental shift from using many tools to running the business from one place."
For Canadian businesses grappling with AI adoption, the message is clear: accountability matters. As AI becomes more powerful, the question of who takes responsibility when things go wrong becomes more important, not less.
This article is based on reporting from BetaKit, Canada's technology news outlet. Read the original story at BetaKit.com.