‘Shipping in a day what took three weeks’: Zoho’s Sridhar Vembu says AI is transforming UI development

Zoho co-founder and chief scientist Sridhar Vembu has offered a detailed look at how artificial intelligence tools are being used across the software firm, while underlining that engineers remain fully accountable for their work.

In a post shared on Friday, Vembu wrote, “We use AI coding tools across the company, with the caution to engineers that they have to review and approve all the code and take responsibility for it.” He added that Zoho does not impose AI tools on its staff, noting, “We don’t force feed or mandate AI tools, and leave the decision on how best to use AI to experienced engineers.”

Weeks of work reduced to a day

Vembu highlighted a conversation with one of Zoho’s most productive engineers, who has around two decades of experience and is currently handling complex UI tasks where performance is critical. According to Vembu, the engineer said he is now “shipping features that would have taken him 3 weeks of work that he got done in a day”.

He explained that the process still depends heavily on human expertise. “AI needed him to provide the structure, it fleshed out the details and that required him to draw on his experience,” Vembu wrote, pointing out that AI acts as an accelerator rather than a replacement.

Opening doors for junior engineers

The Zoho executive also shared an example involving a less experienced team member who built an internal tool using AI. That tool is now being adopted by other teams within the company. Vembu quoted the senior engineer as saying that the team member “could not have built the tool without AI”, suggesting that AI is helping younger engineers achieve outcomes that would otherwise be out of reach.

Bullish outlook on UI development

Based on these experiences, Vembu said there is strong optimism around AI’s role in user interface work. “Overall, for UI work, he is very bullish on AI,” he noted.

Vembu clarified that these observations are not tied to his own research initiatives. “All these are independent of my own research project. Just reporting on our collective experience,” he wrote, framing the comments as a snapshot of how AI is already changing day-to-day engineering work at Zoho.