News
In Brief
- Zoho introduces Vani for collaborative visual teamwork.
- Vani combines whiteboarding, mind mapping, templates, video calls.
- Small and mid-sized businesses gain streamlined collaboration, reducing app-switching and boosting efficiency.
Zoho has launched Vani, a sub-brand for visual-first collaboration. Launched October 1, the platform offers an infinite canvas that blends brainstorming, structured diagramming and video calls in one space. With this move, Zoho enters the crowded visual collaboration market, going up against established players such as Miro, Lucid, FigJam and Mural. By targeting small and mid-sized businesses with low-cost plans with native integration across Zoho’s 50 plus applications, Vani aims to reduce app-switching and improve team efficiency.
What Vani Offers
Vani brings together tools for whiteboarding, flowcharts, diagrams and mind mapping alongside native video meetings. The platform is built for concurrent, disruption-free collaboration, letting multiple colleagues work in the same canvas without the interruptions and confusion common in co-editing sessions.
At the core is an AI-layer supporting content generation, visualization creation and analysis. While Vani is a standalone brand, it integrates natively with Zoho’s broader ecosystem, enabling users to connect visual work directly to CRM, project management and other applications.
Vani is available globally with a free plan offering unlimited user onboarding and a team plan priced at $5 per user monthly.
Vani Visual Collaboration Platform Features
According to Zoho, Vani addresses common collaboration pain points through several integrated capabilities:
| Capability | Description |
|---|---|
| Space and Zone model | Structured collaboration allowing parallel work with big-picture visibility |
| Templates and kits | Pre-built resources for strategy, planning, design and social media workflows |
| Mind mapping tools | Visual organization tools for brainstorming and connecting ideas |
| AI-powered generation | Tools that create content, flowcharts, mind maps and provide summaries |
| Native video meetings | Integrated video calls with recording for synchronous and asynchronous work |
| Ecosystem integration | Connections to Zoho applications and third-party tools |
Broader Collaboration Market Context
The release comes amid a wave of activity in visual collaboration. In 2024, Miro launched its Innovation Workspace, which according to the company, marked a new era in visual collaboration with AI-powered capabilities. Similarly, Adobe transformed PDFs into "conversational knowledge hubs" with Acrobat Studio earlier this year, while Slack embedded AI tools directly within daily workflows to create what company officials claim is a more focused work environment.
Zoho’s bet is that Vani’s affordable pricing and deep platform integration will resonate with SMBs, a segment where Zoho has long built its reputation.
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