Latest news with #MCP
Time of India
17 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
Zoho courts the enterprise CIO with its own LLM and agentic AI stack
Zoho , a Chennai-headquartered SaaS company, has entered the foundational model arena with the launch of its proprietary large language model , Zia LLM . The announcement, made on the sidelines of its annual Zoholics India conference in Bengaluru, signals a growing ambition to deepen its AI footprint—while maintaining its hallmark focus on privacy and affordability. 'The announcement emphasises Zoho's long-standing aim to build foundational technology focused on the protection of customer data, breadth and depth of capabilities because of the business context, and value,' said Mani Vembu, CEO of Zoho. 'Our LLM model is trained specifically for business use cases, keeping privacy and governance at its core, which has resulted in lowering the inference cost, passing on that value to the customers, while also ensuring that they can utilise AI productively and efficiently.' How can Zoho's move into building its own LLM be viewed then: A bid for strategic differentiation, or a necessary pivot as enterprises demand more sovereignty and cost control over AI? Arun Chandrasekaran, Distinguished VP Analyst at Gartner, framed it as the former. 'The move is aimed at creating a differentiation for business use cases, targeting efficiency and privacy for customers who can't afford or don't want to rely on large external LLM providers,' he said. A right-sized, In-house stack Built fully in-house and trained using NVIDIA's AI-accelerated computing platform, Zia LLM comprises three model sizes—1.3 billion, 2.6 billion, and 7 billion parameters. Each is optimized separately for distinct business contexts such as structured data extraction, summarisation, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and code generation. This tiered model strategy enables Zoho to balance performance and compute efficiency across user scenarios, a principle the company refers to as 'right-sizing.' It also gives Zoho the flexibility to scale Zia LLM gradually; the first round of parameter increases is expected by the end of 2025. 'By building its own AI stack , Zoho is hoping to appeal to businesses that care about domain-specific AI, AI integrated into business workflows while simultaneously being sovereign and cost efficient,' Chandrasekaran said. To that end, Zoho has launched a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that opens its library of workflow actions to third-party AI agents. While customers can still integrate with external models like ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek, Zia LLM gives them the option to keep their data within Zoho's environment—benefiting from the latest AI capabilities without sending sensitive information to third-party clouds. The model is now deployed across Zoho data centers in the U.S., India, and Europe. Building agents without code The company also debuted Zia Agent Studio, a no-code platform that lets businesses create AI agents embedded directly within Zoho applications. More than 25 pre-built agents are already available, including several tailored for Indian businesses. 'Our differentiation comes from offering agents over our low-code platform so that there is a human in the loop for verification and modification. It is much simpler to verify and make changes in the UI screen than reading the code,' Vembu said. These agents work across business functions. For instance, a Customer Service Agent in Zoho Desk can process customer queries, respond to common issues, or route complex requests to a human agent. Meanwhile, Zoho's AI assistant, Ask Zia, enables interactive conversations to build reports, analyse data, and assist data teams in creating machine learning models. Zoho also launched India-specific agents that can verify documents like PAN, Voter ID, Udyog Aadhar, GSTIN, Driving Licences, and utility bills—targeting use cases in HR and financial services, such as employee background verification or onboarding checks. Eyeing the enterprise, quietly While Zoho has long positioned itself as a champion of small and mid-sized businesses, its expanding AI stack, with built-in governance and observability tools, may signal broader ambitions. 'While Zoho will remain committed to SMBs, its AI platform capabilities, governance tooling, and agentic capabilities suggest it is testing the waters for enterprise traction. Perhaps they are eyeing upmarket expansion without abandoning affordability,' Chandrasekaran said. That shift could mean rethinking pricing, too. As CIOs evaluate Zoho's AI agents and LLM stack for enterprise deployment, traditional SaaS models may not apply, Chandrasekaran noted: 'CIOs will scrutinize data privacy , extensibility, grounding mechanisms, observability, and interoperability, especially with existing enterprise data and APIs. Also, Agentic AI is giving rise to new pricing models that can potentially challenge the seat-based pricing model of SaaS. How well Zoho can embrace new pricing models (such as usage-based or outcome-based pricing) will be critical for its success with CIOs.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Former Heads of Google Travel and Tripadvisor Form AI Startup to Head Off Online Travel Agencies
DirectBooker, a startup backed by former Tripadvisor CEO Steve Kaufer and ex-Google Travel head Richard Holden, wants to feed hotel listings directly into AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini — challenging the role of online travel agencies like 'The default behavior is going to be for the OTAs to win again,' said Sanjay Vakil, a co-founder and the CEO of DirectBooker. 'And I would like to head off that outcome. But it's going to take more than three people to do that, so we're looking to grow a little bit.' Vakil held various product management leadership roles at Google Travel and Tripadvisor. The other two co-founders of DirectBooker are Chief Product Officer Theresa Meyer and Chief Technology Officer George Madrid. The Problem to Solve With increasing numbers of consumers searching for travel on ChatGPT, Perplexity, Anthropic, and Gemini, online travel agencies such as and Tripadvisor are establishing partnerships with them to deliver hotel inventory. Vakil said DirectBooker wants to establish relationships with hotels and deliver more robust and comprehensive hotel data to the LLMs. The would be for hotels to attract direct bookings –bypassing the OTAs. Holden, Kaufer, and Vakil published their thoughts in a post called 'Winning the AI Era: How Hotels Can Break Free From OTA Dependence.' Vakil believes that most travelers want to book directly with hotels, and that they would benefit from more detailed hotel information, lower prices, and additional perks. 'There's this opportunity for hotels to showcase themselves to best advantage that's really been missing,' Vakil said. The startup is calling these 'direct bookings' though travelers would still be going first to LLMs – it's not as direct as going to, say, What Is the Competitive Moat? DirectBooker claims it has a tech advantage. It plans to use Model Context Protocol (MCP) technology, which is an open standard and, it argues, can deliver better data. But the same technology is available to competitors as well. 'There's a world in which the OTAs sort of put an MCP layer on top of that [their feeds] and provide that information to the LLMs,' Vakil said. 'I haven't seen it happen yet, and I can imagine technological mismatches that make that more difficult than it should be. We're building our stuff from the ground up.' DirectBooker Is In Startup Mode DirectBooker is at a very early stage. It received pre-seed backing from venture firm Baukunst, and has raised around $2 million from investors, including Kaufer and Holden. The three co-founders are working on DirectBooker, as well as a half-dozen contractors, Vakil said. The startup doesn't have a product or hotel partnerships yet, although it has been speaking with hotels for about a year. Vakil thinks the startup would probably use traditional CPC and CPA models to get paid, but the business model isn't the focus for now. 'I think the industry has settled on particularly expensive transactions, but they don't need to be that expensive,' Vakil said. 'We should be able to get people to them inexpensively, partly because I get to avoid a bunch of the costs that the OTAs have. I don't need customer service. I don't need to worry about protecting customer data. I'm just handing people directly over to the hotel, who already has to do that.' For now, a consumer website, is just turf to test ideas. The real play would revolve around hotel and LLM partnerships. Get breaking travel news and exclusive hotel, airline, and tourism research and insights at Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Techday NZ
2 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
Sinch launches Model Context Protocol to drive AI messaging
Sinch has launched its implementation of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), allowing artificial intelligence agents to initiate compliant, real-time telecommunications activities across messaging, voice, email, and verification channels via standardised interfaces. The MCP is an emerging protocol intended to standardise how AI agents interact with various systems and services. Sinch's deployment of the protocol is designed to give AI agents the ability to carry out communications tasks directly through its platform. These tasks range from orchestrating marketing campaigns to client notifications, identity verification processes, and customer service handling. AI-driven communications According to Sinch, MCP is engineered to manage AI-scale communication volumes, suitable for tasks demanding rapid, automated interaction rather than the slower cadence typically associated with human-initiated communications. The implementation supports integration with AI tools, including OpenAI SDK, Claude, and Microsoft's Azure AI, and is delivered with compliance and security protocols incorporated as standard. The company states that MCP helps support a broad transition away from traditional brand-centric applications to direct communication channels between enterprises and their customers. Sinch currently manages over 900 billion customer interactions each year for 175,000 businesses in more than 60 countries, providing messaging, voice, email, and verification services, and drawing upon its local compliance and routing expertise. Global scale and expertise Sinch customers have already begun to report outcomes claimed to result from the shift towards AI-assisted engagement. For example, a global insurer has been able to autonomously process 80% of customer enquiries across 125 languages, while a retail client achieved tripled engagement by integrating conversational AI with Rich Communication Services (RCS). The company issued data from its State of Customer Communications Report suggesting that 95% of businesses are currently using or planning to utilise AI in customer communications. Research from IDC projects that the global AI platforms market will reach USD $153.0 billion by 2028. MCP implementation details Through its new MCP server, now available in developer preview with Claude, Sinch is providing a mechanism for AI agents to understand the requirements of different communication actions. The server allows agents to determine which channel should be used, how messages should be formatted for different jurisdictions, which regulatory rules apply, and how to ensure successful delivery. Sinch notes that these capabilities are accessible via a range of tools, including development environments like Cursor and frameworks such as OpenAI Agents SDK, as well as platforms like AgenticFlow and Microsoft Azure AI Foundry. "AI is transforming how businesses communicate, and Sinch has the proven infrastructure to make it work at scale," said Robert Gerstmann, Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder at Sinch. "With MCP, we're codifying decades of communications expertise into protocols that AI agents can understand, teaching them the specific requirements, compliance rules, and best practices needed for each use case and region. What matters most happens behind the scenes; guaranteeing delivery, maintaining quality, navigating compliance, and preventing fraud. We've spent decades perfecting these operational fundamentals that make AI-powered communications actually work." Strategic partnerships The MCP protocol is part of Sinch's broader strategic approach to AI communications. Alongside established integrations with OpenAI and Anthropic, Sinch also provides routing systems and conversational AI functionality, intending to offer enterprises a comprehensive platform for deploying AI-assisted communication strategies. Sinch's partnerships span a variety of major technology companies. It is an Adobe Platinum Partner and has links with Salesforce Agentforce and Microsoft Dynamics Customer Insights, which the company reports strengthens its position within the enterprise AI communications landscape. "At Sinch we are pioneering the way the world communicates, and our MCP implementation represents the next evolution of that mission," said Laurinda Pang, CEO of Sinch. "Through the expansion of native AI capabilities and partnerships, we're equipping organizations with unprecedented capabilities to connect with customers anywhere, anytime, through any channel. We envision a world where every business, regardless of size or technical sophistication, can harness the power of intelligent communications to keep their customers engaged, informed, safe, and happy."
Techday NZ
2 days ago
- Business
- Techday NZ
GitLab Duo Agent Platform beta unlocks AI-human collaboration
GitLab has opened public beta access to its GitLab Duo Agent Platform, a DevSecOps orchestration platform enabling asynchronous collaboration between developers and AI agents. Product details The GitLab Duo Agent Platform introduces an orchestration layer designed to allow specialised AI agents and human developers to collaborate within software development projects. By leveraging GitLab as the system of record, the platform delivers broad project context to AI agents, supporting informed decision-making in line with organisational standards. The company has made the public beta available to Premium and Ultimate customers. The initial set of features includes Software Development Flow - the first orchestrated multi-agent workflow that accumulates context, clarifies ambiguities with developers, and implements changes to codebases and repositories using project structures, codebase history, and supplementary context such as GitLab issues and merge requests. Specialised agents and workflows Specialised agents on the platform mirror established team roles, with capabilities to search, read, create, and modify existing artefacts across GitLab. The platform also features agent Flows, which are structured, predetermined workflows that can coordinate multiple specialised agents to autonomously execute complex or multi-step tasks. GitLab is planning an AI Catalogueueueueue in the future - this marketplace will allow organisations to create, customise, and share agents and agent flows among their teams and the wider GitLab ecosystem. Interface and support Users of the public beta have access to GitLab Duo Agentic Chat within development environments, both in IDEs and the GitLab Web UI. According to GitLab, the chat experience has been transformed into an active development partner, supporting iterative feedback and chat history, as well as streamlined delegation using new slash commands such as /explain, /tests, and /include. These commands create a quick delegation language, and the /include feature allows for context injection from specific files, issues, merge requests, or dependencies. Developers can also personalise agent behaviour using custom rules, specifying guidance tailored to individual or team preferences through natural language instructions. In addition to integration with Visual Studio Code, support has been extended to JetBrains IDEs such as IntelliJ, PyCharm, GoLand, and WebStorm. The platform also introduces Model Context Protocol (MCP) Client Support, which enables GitLab Duo Agentic Chat to connect to remote and local MCP servers. This allows agents to communicate with systems beyond GitLab, provided those systems are accessible via MCP, expanding the practical application of the platform's capabilities. Future releases GitLab stated that the scope and quality of the Duo Agent Platform will be expanded through subsequent 18.x releases, with a general availability target by the end of the year. Industry perspectives GitLab's own leadership and industry observers offered perspectives on the platform's beta release. "GitLab Duo Agent Platform enhances our development workflow with AI that truly understands our codebase and our organisation," said Bal Kang, Engineering Platform Lead at NatWest. "Having GitLab Duo AI agents embedded in our system of record for code, tests, CI/CD, and the entire software development lifecycle boosts productivity, velocity, and efficiency. The agents have become true collaborators to our teams, and their ability to understand intent, break down problems, and take action frees our developers to tackle the exciting, innovative work they love." Rachel Stephens, Research Director at RedMonk, commented, "As software development workflows grow in complexity and organisations look to leverage AI, there's an increasing need for platforms that can integrate AI capabilities without adding to existing disjointed toolchains." "As a DevSecOps platform, GitLab is already positioned to help developers collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously. Now the GitLab Duo Agent Platform intends to take this a step further, helping developers also integrate AI agents into their workflows." Bill Staples, Chief Executive Officer at GitLab, added, "Today marks a pivotal moment in software development as we introduce the public beta of the GitLab Duo Agent Platform, the first DevSecOps orchestration platform designed to unlock asynchronous collaboration between developers and AI agents." "GitLab Duo Agent Platform isn't just another AI tool; it's a fundamental reimagining of software development from isolated, linear processes into dynamic, intelligent collaboration." "By leveraging GitLab's unique position as the system of record for the entire software development lifecycle, we're providing AI agents with unprecedented context and capabilities. This enables our customers to work with AI agents that have comprehensive context about their codebase, their workflows, and their organisational goals to help boost productivity, velocity, and efficiency."
Business Wire
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
GitLab Announces the Public Beta of GitLab Duo Agent Platform
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--All Remote - GitLab Inc., the most comprehensive, intelligent DevSecOps platform, today announced the public beta launch of GitLab Duo Agent Platform, a DevSecOps orchestration platform designed to unlock asynchronous collaboration between developers and AI agents. GitLab Duo Agent Platform represents a significant advancement in software development by establishing an intelligent orchestration layer that facilitates seamless collaboration between specialized AI agents and human developers. Leveraging GitLab's role as the system of record for software development, the platform equips AI agents with comprehensive project context, enabling informed decisions that align with organizational standards. GitLab Duo Agent Platform Capabilities Available Now in Public Beta The first capabilities for GitLab Duo Agent Platform in public beta, now available to Premium and Ultimate customers, include: Software Development Flow: The first orchestrated multi-agent workflow that gathers comprehensive context, clarifies ambiguities with developers, and executes strategic plans to make precise changes to codebases and repositories, leveraging the project structure, codebase, and history along with additional context like GitLab issues or merge requests. GitLab Duo Agentic Chat in IDE: Transforms the chat experience from a passive Q&A tool into an active development partner directly in development environments, enabling more sophisticated interactions and task delegation through enhanced capabilities, including: Iterative Feedback and Chat History: Enables Duo Agentic Chat to support stateful, conversational partnerships that help foster trust and enable developers to delegate more complex tasks with corrective guidance. Streamlined Delegation Through Slash Commands: Expanded commands such as /explain, /tests, and /include that create a "delegation language" for quick and precise intent, with /include allowing explicit context injection from specific files, issues, merge requests, or dependencies. Personalization Through Custom Rules: Enables developers to tailor agent behavior to individual and team preferences using natural language for development style guides and organizational policies. GitLab Duo Agentic Chat in Web UI: Provides direct access within the GitLab Web UI, evolving the agent from a coding assistant to a true DevSecOps agent with access to rich non-code context and the ability to make changes directly from the Web UI. JetBrains IDEs Support: Expands Duo Agentic Chat to the JetBrains family of IDEs, including IntelliJ, PyCharm, GoLand, and WebStorm, with automatic agentic capabilities for existing users and marketplace installation for new users. Model Context Protocol (MCP) Client Support: Enables Duo Agentic Chat to connect to remote and locally running MCP servers, allowing connections to systems beyond GitLab with any service that exposes itself via MCP, becoming part of the agent's skill set. Each month, GitLab plans to increase the scope and quality of the Duo Agent Platform in subsequent 18.x releases, with a target for general availability by the end of the year. To learn more about GitLab Duo Agent Platform capabilities and product roadmap, read the GitLab blog. Supporting Quotes 'GitLab Duo Agent Platform enhances our development workflow with AI that truly understands our codebase and our organization,' said Bal Kang, Engineering Platform Lead at NatWest. 'Having GitLab Duo AI agents embedded in our system of record for code, tests, CI/CD, and the entire software development lifecycle boosts productivity, velocity, and efficiency. The agents have become true collaborators to our teams, and their ability to understand intent, break down problems, and take action frees our developers to tackle the exciting, innovative work they love.' 'As software development workflows grow in complexity and organizations look to leverage AI, there's an increasing need for platforms that can integrate AI capabilities without adding to existing disjointed toolchains,' said Rachel Stephens, Research Director at RedMonk. 'As a DevSecOps platform, GitLab is already positioned to help developers collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously. Now the GitLab Duo Agent Platform intends to take this a step further, helping developers also integrate AI agents into their workflows.' "Today marks a pivotal moment in software development as we introduce the public beta of the GitLab Duo Agent Platform, the first DevSecOps orchestration platform designed to unlock asynchronous collaboration between developers and AI agents," said Bill Staples, CEO at GitLab. 'GitLab Duo Agent Platform isn't just another AI tool; it's a fundamental reimagining of software development from isolated, linear processes into dynamic, intelligent collaboration. By leveraging GitLab's unique position as the system of record for the entire software development lifecycle, we're providing AI agents with unprecedented context and capabilities. This enables our customers to work with AI agents that have comprehensive context about their codebase, their workflows, and their organizational goals to help boost productivity, velocity, and efficiency.' About GitLab GitLab is the most comprehensive, intelligent DevSecOps platform for software innovation. GitLab enables organizations to increase developer productivity, improve operational efficiency, reduce security and compliance risk, and accelerate digital transformation. More than 50 million registered users and more than 50% of the Fortune 100 trust GitLab to ship better, more secure software faster. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this release are reasonable, they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause actual results or outcomes to be materially different from any future results or outcomes expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information on risks, uncertainties, and other factors that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially from those included in or contemplated by the forward-looking statements contained in this release are included under the caption 'Risk Factors' and elsewhere in the filings and reports we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We do not undertake any obligation to update or release any revisions to any forward-looking statement or to report any events or circumstances after the date of this press release or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by law.
