NewsCRM & Data7 Feb 2025 · 3 min read

Big CX News from Zoho, Google, Cisco, & Salesforce

The last week in CX has seen AI agents releases from Zoho and Google, a Cisco report into DeepSeek, and staff cuts from Salesforce. Here are the extracts fro...

Rhys Fisher

The last week in CX has seen AI agents releases from Zoho and Google, a Cisco report into DeepSeek, and staff cuts from Salesforce.

Here are the extracts from some of our most popular news stories over the last seven days.

Zoho Previews AI Agents, Teases Low Pricing, & Shares More on Its CEO Transition

Zoho has launched a preview of preconfigured, task-specific Zia AI Agents.

Announced at Zoho Day 2025 in Austin, these AI Agents promise to automate various tasks across Zoho’s enterprise portfolio, which comprises 100+ products.

Zoho CRM is one such product. Within the solution, Zia Agents may take over service, sales, and marketing tasks, like resolving tickets, nurturing leads, and crafting campaigns.

Yet, the pre-configured agents expand much further, scheduling interviews for HR, tracking inventories for warehouse managers, and much more.

The tech giant also introduced a Zia Agent Marketplace where its customers can scope these agents, customize them, and – ultimately – deploy them within their Zoho environment.

In time, the marketplace may also provide templates and ideation points for users and partners.

To build upon these ideation points, customers may utilize the new Zia AI Studio, create their own AI agents for specific tasks, and mechanize more of the enterprise (Read on...).

Google Launches an AI Agent That Will Call Customer Service for You

Google has launched an experimental new machine customer feature: “Ask for Me”.

The feature empowers its search engine users with an AI agent, which may call businesses and make inquiries for them.

For now, the innovation is available through Search Lab, Google’s program for people to experiment with and share feedback on innovations to improve search experiences.

Announcing the news on X, Rose Yao, VP of Product Management at Google, said:

You can use AI to call businesses on your behalf to find out what they charge for a service & when it’s available, like an oil change ASAP from nearby mechanics.

Currently, the feature only supports mechanics and nail salons, as it’s still very much in its experimental phase.

Nevertheless, it’s strikingly similar to Duplex on the Web, which Google shuttered in 2022 (Read on...).

Cisco Researchers Shred DeepSeek, Blast Its “Safety and Security”

A Cisco report has called into question the security credentials of DeepSeek’s large language model (LLM).

Conducted in collaboration with AI security researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the study uncovered “critical safety flaws” in DeepSeek’s R1 offering.

For any readers who may have been hiding under a rock for the past two weeks, DeepSeek R1 is an open-source, generative AI (GenAI) chatbot, similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

However, whereas the likes of OpenAI are pouring billions of dollars into their GenAI chatbots, DeepSeek is offering comparable results at a fraction of the cost.

Unsurprisingly, the cost disparity between DeepSeek and other major US firms has rocked the AI space.

But is there a hidden cost to deploying DeepSeek’s solution? In Short, yes (Read on...).

Salesforce Quietly Cuts 1,000 Jobs Amid Hiring Push, Sources Say

Salesforce is reportedly slashing more than 1,000 jobs.

Bloomberg broke the news, citing a “person familiar with the matter”, who confirmed that affected employees would be able to apply for internal positions.

The source also stated that it was unclear which divisions were most affected by the reductions.

Salesforce has not yet confirmed the job cuts.

Interestingly, the reported releases will occur at the same time as the vendor is actively looking to recruit 2,000 employees to help sell its new agentic AI solution: Agentforce.

While Salesforce has not yet revealed which roles are set to be scrapped, the focus on Agentforce-related positions suggests that the CRM leader is restructuring its business to become more of an AI- and data-led company (Read on...).

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