At Zoho’s SMZ 2025 event, I sat down with Ashok Ramamoorthy to discuss Zoho’s newly launched Notebook AI. The service, unveiled at the conference, is designed to help small businesses simplify note-taking, improve productivity, and make collaboration easier through artificial intelligence.

For small business owners juggling countless meetings, calls, and customer interactions, staying organized often means wrestling with scattered notes across apps and devices. Notebook AI aims to change that by automating transcription, summarization, and even visualization of meeting content—all within Zoho’s ecosystem.

Why Notebook AI Matters for Small Businesses

As Ramamoorthy explained, Zoho built Notebook AI to directly address productivity challenges that small businesses face every day.

“The first set of problems in general small businesses faces they need a solution which can amplify their productivity as well as reduce their workload. They are kind of looking for one solution where it will probably help them to reduce or increase their productivity. So Notebook AI is designed in such a way to make use of the AI and LLMS to probably reduce the time. Where small businesses can use the time to focus on productivity.”

For entrepreneurs and lean teams, saving minutes on administrative work often translates into hours that can be redirected toward sales, customer service, or innovation. Notebook AI’s launch brings two standout features right away: AI Meeting Notes and AI Mind Maps.

AI Meeting Notes: Turning Conversations Into Action

Anyone who has scribbled half-legible notes during a client call knows the pain of missing details. Notebook AI automates this entire process.

“What AI meeting notes is going to do, it will automatically listen to the meeting. It gets a recording of the meeting and it gets the transcription out of the meeting and it neatly summarizes that particular meeting into a minutes of meeting note.”

These AI-powered notes go beyond basic transcripts. Notebook AI identifies the agenda, speakers, discussion points, and action items. Instead of scrolling through raw transcripts, small business owners can access a polished summary that makes follow-up clear and immediate.

This feature alone could save countless hours for owners who double as project managers, client liaisons, and team leads. More importantly, it reduces the risk of forgetting commitments or misinterpreting client requests.

AI Mind Maps: Visualizing Meetings at a Glance

Not everyone processes information well through text-heavy notes. That’s where Notebook AI’s second launch feature—AI Mind Maps—comes in.

“Some people may not be very good and viewing very long notes, right, so they’ll probably want to view the minutes of the meeting as a how they see it in their mind, so they provide a mind map view. So you tap on the mind map, view the minutes of meeting is neatly categorized into small topics, and if you just tap on the topics, it will automatically alert you to the next topic and the relative topics are linked together.”

For small business teams that thrive on brainstorming or need quick overviews of conversations, mind maps turn abstract discussions into visual connections. This can be particularly powerful for service businesses, creative agencies, or consultants who often rely on free-flowing discussions with clients.

Tackling Accuracy and Noise Reduction

One common concern with AI transcription is accuracy—especially in noisy environments or during overlapping conversations. I raised this directly, asking about transcript reliability and on-device processing.

Ramamoorthy acknowledged this is a priority:

“Right now we don’t do any on device processing for confidentiality, but we’ll definitely take that as one of the input and we’ll add it towards. And second thing is we do noise deduction at the back end and we’ll remove the noise so that the audio quality is much better when it’s given to the transcription service and we get the transcription and a good quality.”

For small businesses, this means clearer records of conversations without investing in high-end recording gear or transcription services.

CRM Integration: Notes That Live Where You Work

A major selling point of Notebook AI is how it fits into Zoho’s broader suite of apps, particularly Zoho CRM and Zoho Bigin. For businesses that already use these tools to manage leads and customers, Notebook AI adds another layer of efficiency.

“So what Notebook does is it gets the recording once the call is done, it gets the recording of that particular meeting and it automatically creates the minutes of meeting mind map and everything for you. And it attaches through that record inside the CRM itself.”

In practice, this means a small sales team doesn’t need to manually upload notes or recordings after each call. The CRM contact record will already hold the call audio, the AI-generated meeting notes, and even the mind map.

I pointed out another potential benefit—dispute resolution. With calls automatically logged and summarized, businesses can avoid “he said, she said” scenarios with clients. Everything is documented and tied directly to customer records.

Smart Tags and Templates: Faster Searches, Less Admin

Searching for old notes can be a major time drain. Notebook AI’s smart tags and AI-powered categorization help here.

“The smart tags and the smart mind map helps the users to reduce the search because these are generated based on the content which is there in the note… the AI will contextually get the tags from the content and add it to your note. And when you search for that particular term, it automatically pops up so thereby it reduces the search term a lot.”

Admins can also create standardized templates, making it easier for teams to keep records consistent. This is especially useful for growing small businesses that want to maintain professionalism as they scale.

Collaboration Through Notes and Whiteboards

Notebook AI isn’t just about capturing conversations—it also supports collaborative brainstorming.

“If you take that whiteboard, it is not just taking notes, you’re brainstorming the idea with your peers… The whiteboard also has an option to have a video call so you can place a video call and inside a whiteboard and you can start brainstorming.”

For small businesses that lack expensive collaboration platforms, having whiteboards, notes, and even video calls integrated into one tool reduces context switching and costs.

Privacy and Security: Keeping Data Inside Zoho

I raised an important question: how does Zoho handle transcript retention and privacy? For many small businesses, client confidentiality is non-negotiable.

Ramamoorthy was clear:

“The transcription service is built by Zoho, so we don’t give the audio data to any third party to do the transcription. It is done by the Zoho transcription service in itself.”

“Even the mind maps or the smart meeting notes everything is generated using Zoho’s LLM so once again the data is not given to any third party which means that the data is always within Zoho and within your container only you can access your data. Even Zoho cannot access your data.”

Notebook AI also gives businesses the option to delete transcriptions if they don’t want them stored, ensuring owners remain in control of their data.

Beyond Notes: Generative AI in Notebook

While meeting notes and mind maps were the focus of the launch, Ramamoorthy hinted at a broader roadmap.

“Notebook AI is not just about these two things. We have a lot of things in Notebook AI, like for example the generative AI part, which is kind of very important for note taking aspect because note taking is viewed in two concepts, one is creating content, the other is viewing content.”

Generative AI inside Notebook can help small businesses rewrite content, adjust tone, correct grammar, and even translate text. For owners who don’t have time to polish communications, these features could make day-to-day writing more professional and efficient.

A Day in the Life: Practical Scenarios

What does this look like in practice? Consider a small sales team of two. A rep calls a prospect directly from Zoho CRM. Once the call ends, Notebook AI automatically creates:

• A transcription of the conversation

• A summarized “minutes of meeting” note

• A visual mind map of key discussion points

• Smart tags for easier searching later

All of this is instantly attached to the customer’s record in CRM. When the rep follows up next week, they don’t need to re-listen to the call or shuffle through notes. The context is right there.

Multiply this across dozens of deals or service requests, and the time savings become clear.

Where to Learn More

For small businesses looking to try Notebook AI, Zoho offers more information at zoho.com/notebook and zoho.com/notebook/ai.

As Ramamoorthy emphasized:

“There is a huge amount of things are packed into the Notebook AI, so you can always visit zoho.com/notebookai or zoho.com/notebook to know more.”

Final Takeaway for Small Business Owners

Notebook AI is more than just another note-taking app. By automating meeting documentation, reducing search times, integrating directly into CRM, and ensuring data privacy, Zoho has built a tool that speaks directly to the needs of small businesses.

For owners managing sales, client relationships, and internal collaboration, Notebook AI could mean fewer missed details, faster follow-up, and more time spent on growth rather than admin.

This article, “Interview with Zoho’s Ashok Ramamoorthy: Inside Notebook AI at SMZ 2025” was first published on Small Business Trends