Telecom
Zoho Launches Zia LLM, and Expands AI Suite with Agents and Studio Tools

Zoho, a global technology company announced the launch of Zia LLM—the company’s proprietary large language model, a no-code agent builder, Zia Agent Studio, over 25 deployable Zia agents, and a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to open up Zoho’s vast library of actions to third-party agents.

“Today’s announcement emphasises Zoho’s longstanding aim to build foundational technology focused on protection of customer data, breadth and depth of capabilities because of the business context, and value,” said Kehinde Ogundare, Country Head, Zoho Nigeria. “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 are able to utilise AI productively and efficiently.”
Zia LLM: Custom-Built AI for the Enterprise
Zoho has successfully launched its own large language model, Zia LLM, built completely in-house by leveraging NVIDIA’s AI accelerated computing platform. Trained with Zoho product use cases in mind—ranging from structured data extraction, summarisation, RAG, and code generation—Zia LLM comprises three models with 1.3 billion, 2.6 billion and 7 billion parameters, each separately trained and optimised for contextual applicability that benchmark competitively against comparable open source models in the market. The three models allow Zoho to always optimise the right model for the right user context, striking the balance between power and resource management. This focus on right-sizing the model is an ongoing development strategy for Zoho. In the short term, Zoho will scale Zia LLM’s model sizes, starting with the first set of parameter increases by the end of 2025.
While Zoho supports many LLM integrations for users, including ChatGPT, Llama, and DeepSeek, Zia LLM continues Zoho’s commitment to data privacy by allowing customers to keep their data on Zoho servers, leveraging the latest AI capabilities without sending their data to AI cloud providers. The model is currently testing for internal use cases across Zoho’s broad app portfolio, and will be available for customer use in coming months.
Zoho also announced two proprietary Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) models for speech-to-text conversion for English and Hindi. Optimised to perform on a low computer load without compromising on accuracy, the models benchmark up to 75% better than comparable models across standard tests. Zoho will expand language support for ASR models to enable more inclusive AI adoption across diverse regions. It will also introduce a reasoning language model (RLM).
Prebuilt Agents, Agent Studio and Marketplace Designed for Real-World Impact
To enable immediate adoption of agentic technology, Zoho has developed a roster of AI agents contextually baked right into its products. These agents can be used across various business activities, handling relevant actions based on the role of the user. These include Customer Service Agent for Zoho Desk that can process incoming customer requests, understand the context, and either answer directly or triage them to a human rep, providing an efficient first line of assistance.
Ask Zia, Zoho’s platform-wide conversational AI assistant, is bolstered with additional BI skills, tailored to data engineers, analysts, and data scientists, while supporting all users within an organisation. It can build end-to-end data pipelines for engineers, analyse data, create reports and dashboards in an interactive conversation mode for analysts, or help jump start building ML models for data scientists.
First announced earlier in 2025, Zoho has further simplified the Zia Agent Studio experience to be fully prompt-based (with the option to use low-code) and includes ready-made access to over 700 actions across Zoho’s products. Agents built by users can be deployed autonomously, triggered by button click, with rule-based automation, or even summoned within customer conversations.
At the time of deployment, an agent can be provisioned as a digital employee, maintaining the user access permission structure defined within the organisation. Admins can perform behavioural audits as well as performance and impact analyses on digital employees, ensuring that every agent is working as effectively as possible and within clear guardrails.
Several pre-built agents are now available for users, such as Candidate Screener, which identifies and ranks the most suitable candidates for a specific job opening based on role requirements, skills, experience, and other key attributes; Deal Analyser, which can analyse deals and provide insights such as win probability, next best action, and follow-up suggestions, and Revenue Growth Specialist, which suggests opportunities for upsell and cross-sell for existing customers.
These agents are available in Agent Marketplace from where customers can easily deploy them. Ecosystem partners, ISVs, and individual developers will be able to create agents and host them on the Zia Agents Marketplace in coming months.
The company plans to add more skills to Ask Zia, allowing it to act as an assistant to Finance teams, Customer Support teams to start with. Support for the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol will be implemented, allowing Zia Agents to interact and collaborate with each other, as well as collaborate with agents on other platforms.
Interoperability and Governance
Zoho’s adoption of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) allows clients to securely access and interact with workflows and actions across over 15 Zoho applications. MCP is available in early access, and integrations via Zoho Flow extend its reach to third-party tools. Zoho Analytics now also supports a local MCP server, allowing for advanced contextual AI use cases while preserving data security and compliance.
Telecom
NCC Expands IPv6 Board with the Appointment of Olusola Teniola, Funke Opeke Others

Olusola Teniola, ipNX Director has been named to the newly inaugurated IPv6 Council Board by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), as part of a broader industry effort to accelerate Nigeria’s transition to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

The inauguration, which took place in Ikeja, Lagos, underscores the Commission’s renewed commitment to accelerating Nigeria’s transition to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), a critical enabler of the country’s digital future.
Mr. Teniola joins a distinguished group of industry leaders, including Funke Opeke, Muhammed Rudman (Chairman), Chris Uwaje (Vice Chairman), Mary Uduma, Gbenga Adebayo, Lanre Ajayi, and Latif Ladid, alongside representatives from key regulatory and government institutions.
Speaking on his appointment, Teniola expressed appreciation to the NCC for the opportunity to serve and reiterated the importance of collaborative action in driving Nigeria’s digital transformation.
“The transition to IPv6 is no longer a future consideration; it is an immediate priority for Nigeria’s digital economy. As data consumption grows and emerging technologies such as 5G, IoT, and AI become more pervasive, we must ensure that our underlying infrastructure is scalable, secure, and globally competitive,” he said.
He further emphasized that achieving meaningful IPv6 adoption will require strong alignment across stakeholders, including telecom operators, internet service providers, enterprises, academia, and government.
“This is a collective responsibility. We must invest in capacity building, drive awareness, and create the right policy and regulatory environment to accelerate adoption. Nigeria cannot afford to lag behind in an increasingly connected world.”
The IPv6 Council Board has been tasked with developing and overseeing the implementation of a national IPv6 strategy, monitoring progress, and providing periodic updates on adoption levels across the country. The Council will also play a key role in addressing infrastructure challenges, strengthening technical expertise, and recommending policy incentives to support nationwide deployment.
Teniola’s appointment reflects ipNX’s continued commitment to shaping Nigeria’s digital ecosystem and advancing the development of resilient, future-ready network infrastructure across the country.
Telecom
QNET, Manchester City Host Football Clinic for Young Talents in Ghana

In a transformative initiative focused on youth empowerment, talent development and community impact, QNET, an international wellness and lifestyle company and a decade-long Official Direct Selling Partner of Manchester City , has successfully hosted an elite football clinic in Accra for 25 promising young Ghanaian footballers aged 7 to 11.

QNET
Delivered by official Manchester City coaches from 21 to 24 May 2026, the football clinic brought together talented young boys and girls from different communities across Ghana at AIS School Park, East Legon, for a unique opportunity to receive world-class football coaching, mentorship and life-skills training inspired by one of the world’s leading football clubs.
For many of the participants, the experience represented more than football. It was an opportunity to dream bigger, build confidence and believe that through hard work, discipline and determination, young Ghanaians can achieve their full potential both on and off the pitch.
Football holds a special place in Ghanaian culture and identity, inspiring generations of young people across the country. Through this initiative, QNET and Manchester City Football Club aimed to contribute meaningfully to the future of youth development in Ghana by creating an inclusive platform where children can learn, grow and thrive regardless of their background.
Trevor Kuna, Chief of Network Development at QNET said, “Football does something that few things can — it cuts across language, background and circumstance and gives young people a common language of ambition. When you watch these children on the pitch, you see not just their talent but their hunger to grow, to prove themselves, to be seen. At QNET, we believe that hunger deserves to be met with opportunity, and that is exactly what this clinic is about.”
The clinic focused not only on football skills and tactical development, but also on teamwork, leadership, discipline, perseverance and self-belief, values that are essential both in sport and in life.
Cherif Abdoulaye, QNET’s Deputy Regional General Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, said,“,“When QNET took this initiative to Nigeria in 2023, we saw first-hand what happens when young people are given access to world-class coaching in their own communities — it shifts something in how they see themselves and what they believe is possible. Bringing it to Ghana felt like the natural next step. Ghana has a football culture that runs deep, and a new generation ready to carry it forward. We are proud that QNET and Manchester City can be part of that story.”
Philipa Harrison, Partnerships Marketing Manager for City Football Group’s MENA region, said “Over the past few days, we have witnessed tremendous passion, energy and commitment from these young players. This football clinic is about helping young people develop their abilities, enjoy the game and believe in what they can achieve in the future. We are proud to partner with QNET to bring this experience to young players in Ghana.”
For more than 10 years, QNET has been the Official Direct Selling Partner of Manchester City Football Club. QNET has also maintained a longstanding partnership with the Confederation of African Football (CAF), supporting major African interclub competitions including the TotalEnergies CAF Champions League and CAF Confederation Cup.
These partnerships reflect QNET’s broader commitment to youth empowerment, community engagement, and the development of sports across Africa.
Beyond its sports and community initiatives, QNET continues to champion ethical business practices, transparency and public education across its markets while working closely with stakeholders and authorities to address the misuse of its brand by unauthorised individuals.
Telecom
Telcos Mull Calculator to Address Data Depletion Complaints

Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) may introduce data calculator to enable users to measure their data usage and address complaints of rapid data depletion.

Data depletion is the rapid exhaustion of your internet data bundle before its expected expiration.
The data calculator is a tool that will show subscribers how their data is used daily.
Telecom operators, largely the MNOs, are already providing subscribers a daily report of data used the previous day, as part of directives from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to drive transparency.
According to a report by Nairametrics, an industry source confirmed the new measure, noting that subscriber complaints over data depletion have now become a major concern in the industry, as it undermines trust.
“An average subscriber believes their service provider steals their data once their data is exhausted before time or depletes faster than they expected, which is not true.
“Over the years, we have tried to enlighten subscribers on factors that could lead to the fast depletion of their data, which include smartphone functionality, among others.
“And now, we are looking at tools that could show the subscribers not just what they have used, but also how they have used it to further promote transparency,” the source said.
According to the source, operators are also intensifying their sensitisation campaigns to help subscribers understand why their data can run out quickly.
Recall that NCC carried out an audit about 24 months ago across the mobile networks and found out that there was “no major” issue of data depletion, contrary to claims and complaints by subscribers.
Findings showed that the major issue still concerns the types of mobile phones and the activities users perform on them.
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