Zoho adds AI tools to Catalyst cloud platform

Zoho Corporation has enhanced its Catalyst cloud development platform with advanced AI tools designed to assist developers in moving AI-generated code from the development phase to production, while simultaneously reducing infrastructure and operational complexity. The AI capabilities encompass Agent Skills, a non-interactive command-line interface, Model Context Protocol support, and integrations with popular AI coding assistants like Anthropic’s Claude Code and OpenAI’s Codex.

These enhancements empower developers to utilize their preferred AI coding assistants within their existing development environments, while Catalyst offers serverless infrastructure for building, testing, deploying, and scaling applications.

According to Kehinde Ogundare, the Country Head of Zoho Nigeria, the swift adoption of AI coding assistants has expedited the creation of applications, yet deploying the generated code reliably has proven to be a challenge. Ogundare elaborated that developers continue to spend considerable time managing infrastructure and integrating diverse cloud services.

However, with Catalyst, such friction is minimized by providing an agent-ready, serverless full-stack platform, facilitating developers in building, deploying, and scaling intelligent applications with enhanced control and reduced operational overhead.

To facilitate the seamless integration of AI coding assistants, Catalyst offers AI skills (Agent Skills) that provide AI coding assistants with contextual information about the platform's services, architecture, and recommended development patterns. This contextual awareness ensures that AI coding assistants can adhere to specified workflows when generating and deploying applications.

Additionally, a non-interactive CLI enables AI coding assistants to execute multi-step Catalyst workflows without necessitating manual input from developers at each stage. The Catalyst MCP server further enables AI coding assistants to access Catalyst capabilities directly from the developers’ environments.

Developers utilizing popular platforms such as VS Code, Claude Code, and Cursor can now perform tasks like creating database tables and adding columns without needing to switch to the Catalyst console. Open-sourcing its AI skills repository, Zoho allows developers to review and extend the tools. Furthermore, the company has released Catalyst’s software development kit, CLI, and Slyte JavaScript framework as open-source resources.

While Zoho maintains human oversight over production deployments, ensuring that AI agents do not directly access production environments, the platform provides collaborator controls, audit trails, and logs detailing the activity of AI agents within applications, the platform, and the MCP tool. Applications developed on Catalyst run within Zoho’s data centers, leveraging the company's security infrastructure, which includes distributed denial-of-service protection, SOC compliance, vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, and a web application firewall.

Zoho offers a free tier of Catalyst on a monthly basis, along with NGN192,500 worth of free credits over a six-month period for users interested in exploring the platform further. The platform operates on a pay-as-you-go pricing model, allowing developers to monitor usage and set budget alerts and spending limits. Additionally, Zoho has made Catalyst free for students developing non-commercial applications, eliminating the need for a subscription or credit card.

As of current estimates, more than 150 million users and over one million paying organizations rely on Zoho's products to manage their businesses. Notably, the company operates its own data centers and does not depend on advertising revenue.