Zoho on Wednesday rolled out Classes 2.0, an overhauled version of the learning management system it first launched during the Covid pandemic, with artificial intelligence (AI) built into nearly every part of the product, from lesson planning and grading to a subject-restricted AI tutor for students.
Dev Anand Ramasamy, vice-president of product management at Zoho who led the product’s development, said the offering is the outcome of nearly five years of continuous work and conversations with teachers. “I would have personally met at least 1,000 teachers during this period,” he said, describing how the product evolved from a simple assignment-collection tool built in response to the pandemic into a full learning platform now used by state governments, universities, schools and colleges.
Solving three problems at a time
Ramasamy framed Classes 2.0 around three groups he said are struggling with the current education system—students, teachers, and institutions. He said today’s students are “digital natives” and tend to disengage quickly in a traditional classroom. Teachers, especially in India, lack the administrative support common in the US, where academic staff get graduate assistants to handle grading and lesson uploads. “Teachers have to do everything all by themselves,” he said, which cuts into classroom time.
Institutions, meanwhile, face growing compliance and reporting demands from regulatory bodies, with penalties for colleges that fall short. “If we put AI in the middle of this mix,” Ramasamy said, “it can help students learn better, free up teachers’ time, and help institutions manage compliance.” This is the philosophy behind the redesign of Zoho Classes.
What’s new?
Zoho Classes 2.0 introduces an AI tutor tailored to each student’s enrolled subjects, rather than being an open-ended general chatbot. Ramasamy said this is a deliberate design choice: “It will first show you the subjects that you are being allotted… anything outside that will not be supported.”
Other additions include a Duolingo-style micro-learning feature with daily questions and streaks, an AI-based career counselling tool, and an AI course builder that Ramasamy said can generate a full course with description, learning outcomes, and a thumbnail image in under 30 seconds, in any of 22 Indian languages. He demonstrated the tool during the interview using an internal test account, noting that the output still needs teacher review: “It is an editor. You can open the editor and then add your own content.”
For teachers, the platform automates lesson planning (replacing what Ramasamy described as an unwieldy, version-less system of shared Excel sheets) and offers AI-assisted grading for computer science assignments. According to him, automated grading could eliminate roughly 150 hours of manual grading work per teacher over a semester, the time that could instead go towards classroom engagement. He was careful to note that AI-generated feedback is not sent directly to students: “It is up to the teacher to edit and then return to the student.”
For institutions, the platform includes a course-outcome mapping tool intended to help colleges generate the data underlying accreditation reports required by bodies such as the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
Language support and accuracy
Classes 2.0 supports 22 scheduled Indian languages. Ramasamy clarified that the interface translation was done through a separate translation process, while the AI features rely on the underlying language model’s own multilingual capabilities rather than a translation layer.
On the risk of factual errors from the AI tutor, he said Zoho is “model agnostic” and tries to reduce hallucinations through narrow, context-specific prompting—for instance, by restricting responses to a student’s specific course and semester. “We haven’t received any complaints of such cases so far,” he said.
When it comes to data privacy, Ramasamy said the platform is designed to instil in students that their activity is visible to institutions. “You cannot use it like your own personal chatbot,” he said, adding that institutions can disable AI access for students entirely if they choose.
Asked about offline access for low-connectivity areas, Ramasamy said the mobile app can cache content for temporary offline viewing but does not support full downloads, citing storage and hardware limitations on the devices many students use.
Pricing and access
Zoho has said that it is offering Classes 2.0 free to central and state government institutions, a decision Ramasamy tied to a broader goal of not letting budget constraints limit access to education technology. Individual teachers, including those at institutions that haven’t adopted the platform, can also use it free for up to 100 students.
Private schools, colleges, and universities are charged Rs 500 per teacher per month, with a separate professional tier and custom-development option for institutions seeking additional features. This commercial arrangement with private institutions is separate from the free offering for government bodies, which “remains free” regardless of the platform’s monetisation model elsewhere.
Ramasamy said Zoho does not plan to charge institutions for the core product licence, though it may charge for services such as dedicated regional-language support staff in specific cases. When asked how AI will redefine education in India, Ramasamy said, “Education has been a great leveller,” reflecting on the broader goal behind the product. “AI is just going to enhance that further.”
Zoho Classes 2.0 introduces an AI tutor tailored to each student’s enrolled subjects. (Express Image/Zoho) 
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