Zoho launches AI-powered Classes 2.0, offers platform free to government schools, colleges and universities in India

Chennai-headquartered software company Zoho on Wednesday launched Zoho Classes 2.0, an artificial intelligence-powered learning management system (LMS) built in India, while announcing that it will make the platform available free of product licensing costs to all central and state government schools, colleges and universities across the country.

The company is rolling out the platform first in India before expanding to global markets over the coming months with region-specific capabilities. Private institutions will be charged on a subscription basis starting at Rs 500 per teacher per month, while individual teachers with up to 100 students can use the platform free of charge.

Also Read: Zoho's Sridhar Vembu asks if AI can solve cancer, climate change and war. Is it the only technology that matters? Internet left divided


The launch comes as educational institutions increasingly look to AI not just for content generation but to rethink how classrooms function. Zoho says the platform goes beyond traditional LMS software by embedding AI across lesson planning, assessments, student engagement and institutional administration.

"Traditional LMS platforms were built to deliver academic content, not experiences," said Dev Anand Ramasamy, vice president of product management at Zoho, in an interaction with ET Online.

"If you try to talk continuously for 40 minutes or an hour to a classroom full of Gen Z students, you will immediately lose their attention. It is not going to be a win-win for anyone."

Instead of expecting teachers to lecture through an entire class, Zoho wants AI to handle repetitive work such as creating courses, assignments, quizzes and lesson plans, leaving teachers to focus on discussion and mentoring.

Betting on the flipped classroom

A key part of Zoho's strategy is bringing the "flipped classroom" model—which has gained popularity globally—to Indian educational institutions.

Rather than introducing a topic for the first time in class, teachers can publish an AI-generated course days in advance. Students go through the material beforehand, allowing classroom time to focus on discussions, quizzes and problem-solving.

"Instead of the teacher introducing the topic, the LMS introduces it a week before class," Ramasamy explained.

"Students spend that week going through the course. Even if they understand only five or ten percent, they don't enter the classroom with a blank slate. That spark in the classroom automatically happens."

The platform opens classes with live quizzes that students can join by scanning QR codes on their phones, giving teachers instant feedback on what students have understood before moving deeper into the lesson.

"We've empowered the teacher. She can run the show instead of struggling to keep students engaged," he said.

Zoho says its AI Course Builder can generate a structured course—including reading material, assignments, assessments and practice tests—in under 30 seconds from a lesson plan or syllabus.

AI that speaks 22 Indian languages

One of the platform's biggest differentiators is multilingual support.

Zoho Classes 2.0 supports all 22 scheduled Indian languages, allowing not only the interface but also AI-generated teaching material, assessments, notifications and classroom assistance to function in regional languages.

"If we build everything in English, in a country like India where we are highly diversified, this will miserably fail because millions of children still think and dream in their mother tongue," Ramasamy said.

"We don't want language to become a barrier."

Once a language such as Marathi, Gujarati or Tamil is selected, the entire application — including AI responses, alerts and interface elements — switches to that language.

Government schools get free access

In a move aimed at expanding digital education, Zoho will make the platform available at no product licensing cost to all central and state government educational institutions.

"We believe education should not be a privilege for only a select few, and budget should not be a problem for government institutions," Ramasamy said.

According to him, the decision was inspired partly by teachers who had adopted earlier versions of Zoho Classes despite limited infrastructure.

Zoho is already working with several state governments, although the company declined to disclose names because of confidentiality agreements.

"We've been working with some governments for over a year now and have already trained around 2,000 teachers. We can't announce those partnerships yet."

The company has also built teacher-training modules into the platform so educators can be trained before institutions go live.

Covid-19 changed the opportunity

Ramasamy said the market has changed dramatically since Zoho launched the first version of the product.

"When we started Classes 1.0, people used to ask us, 'You have an app, but who will provide the internet?' That was the biggest question we had," he said.

"Thankfully, Covid changed that. People understood the value of internet in education, and government schools have significantly narrowed the connectivity gap."

Also Read: Zoho's Sridhar Vembu unveils new mission, nearly 6,000 km away from India

The company believes that improved digital infrastructure now makes statewide deployments practical.

AI with guardrails

With AI increasingly being scrutinised for hallucinations, particularly in education, Zoho says it has deliberately taken a conservative approach.

The platform currently uses multiple text-based AI models and remains model-agnostic, allowing newer models to be added over time.

"We don't train the models ourselves," Ramasamy said.

"We provide detailed prompts, curriculum context, student age, class level and clear boundaries. If there isn't reliable published information, the AI is instructed not to generate an answer."

He added that the company's engineering effort has focused on prompt engineering rather than building proprietary foundation models.

The platform also stores all institutional data on Zoho's own infrastructure hosted in India and complies with the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, GDPR and other global privacy standards.

Beyond content delivery

Besides AI-powered course creation, Zoho Classes 2.0 includes student lifecycle management, institutional analytics, accreditation reporting for NAAC, NBA and NMC, competency tracking for medical colleges and a low-code application builder for educational institutions.

According to the company, the platform has already delivered more than 8 million notifications, processed over 1 million assignment submissions, and hosts more than 2TB of teacher-created video content.

It is currently used by institutions including SRM Institute, Sishya School, Chettinad Health City, Vidya Mandir, Grace International School and GSE Institute, alongside multiple government education initiatives.