Every year, HubSpot’s INBOUND conference provides a unique opportunity for marketing, sales, and customer experience professionals to explore the latest trends, tools, and innovations that are shaping the industry. This year, the event was held in San Francisco, the heart of Silicon Valley, and attendees were treated to groundbreaking insights from top industry experts and the latest HubSpot updates and launches.
To capture the key takeaways, we sat down with our Head of Technology, Chris Watson-James, who attended the event and participated in several sessions. We discussed the biggest trends, product updates, and what revenue leaders should be paying attention to moving forward. Here’s what we learned from this year’s conference.
It’s no surprise that the use of AI was a dominant theme at INBOUND 2025, with multiple sessions discussing its impact on marketing, sales, and operations. One standout talk was by Zach Cass, the former go-to-market lead for OpenAI, who discussed the future of AI. He explored whether AI would replace jobs or enhance human abilities, emphasising that the true value of AI lies in its ability to remove repetitive, robotic tasks, allowing humans to be more human.
Chris highlighted that Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot's co-founder, tackled AI with a similar optimistic lens in his masterclass. Whilst these conversations are undeniably exciting, there's a risk they veer towards being a touch too rosy about AI's impact. The reality is that some industries are already cutting jobs as AI automates repetitive work.
We're firm believers in harnessing AI collaboratively to minimise the impact on roles and workforces. But it would be naive to ignore what's happening on the ground. The smartest leaders are acknowledging this shift head-on and thoughtfully designing how AI complements, rather than simply replaces, their existing teams.
Source: World Economic Forum
Read more about HubSpot's AI developments in email marketing.
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One of the overarching themes at INBOUND this year was unification. The company emphasised bringing everything into one integrated platform to streamline business operations. They understand that businesses won’t get good results from their AI tools if their data isn’t ready and fully integrated: bad data will never result in good insights, even with the best AI tool.
HubSpot launched several key features to support this vision, including Data Studio, which allows businesses to consolidate and manipulate their data from various sources in one place. Ensuring that your business has clean, centralised data will maximise the benefits of AI tools, enabling more accurate insights, better decision-making, and improved customer experiences.
Watch our breakdown video of HubSpot's Data Hub with "Chris", our Head of Technology's AI avatar
Another major update was the introduction of Marketing Studio, a collaboration tool that could rival platforms like Figma and Miro. This new feature offers a shared space for teams to work on campaigns, track progress, and collaborate seamlessly. Additionally, Projects Object was introduced as a potential alternative to project management tools like Asana or Monday, enabling teams to work on projects in a unified environment.
The unification of data, tools, and teams was a central message, encouraging businesses to centralise their operations, improve efficiency across departments and reduce silos.
What you need to know about Data Hub and why it matters to your business.
HubSpot isn’t a requirement to unify your data and operations – although it does make things much easier! If you want your business to truly benefit from AI advancements, you NEED to clean and unify your data. We know it can be hard to convince your CEO or CFO to invest in data cleansing before investing in shiny AI tools, but trust us, you won’t get the results without it.
Book a data audit to uncover inefficiencies and future-proof your revenue operations.
A highlight for Chris was the introduction of AI agents that will revolutionise how revenue teams handle tasks like prospecting, lead research, closing deals, and even customer success management. By automating repetitive processes, these agents free up time for teams to focus on strategic decision-making, personalised outreach, and relationship-building. For revenue leaders, this means improved operational efficiency, with AI handling the heavy lifting and human teams engaging in higher-value activities.
HubSpot has introduced tools to enable users to build their own agents by providing pre-set prompts and documents within the context window. The ability to design agents tailored to specific business needs is a game-changer for businesses looking to automate workflows and enhance productivity.
Learn more about AI agents and how you can use them for your business.
Another significant takeaway from HubSpot’s INBOUND 2025 was the introduction of Loop Marketing. This framework, symbolised by an infinity loop, replaces traditional marketing funnels and acknowledges the role of AI in marketing. The four key stages of Loop Marketing are:
Source: HubSpot
This new approach reflects the shift in how businesses must engage with their audience in a multi-channel world. While the concept still revolves around the fundamental principles of INBOUND marketing, it adapts to the realities of the AI-driven landscape.
Source: Google’s representation of the ‘messy middle’ in the consumer’s journey
This concept is similar to the messy middle, introduced by Google to represent the way people shop and make decisions. The traditional awareness/consideration/decision funnel is no longer linear, as AI is changing how people search.
Experiments need to be run faster and more often, users demand one-on-one personalisation, as basic personalisation, such as using the first name in an email, no longer cuts it. These new concepts show that the foundations of marketing stay the same, but the tactics need to evolve to match evolving behaviours.
One of the more thought-provoking discussions at INBOUND was the idea of hybrid teams, where AI agents are integrated into human teams. Chris reflected on how AI agents can now work alongside human employees, taking on tasks like data analysis, customer outreach, and even content creation. These hybrid teams represent a new way of working, where AI enhances the capabilities of humans, allowing employees to focus on more creative and strategic tasks. Additionally, these hybrid teams will also be crucial for scaling without dramatically increasing headcount.
This concept of a hybrid workforce could potentially reshape business operations and already is in many organisations, especially as AI continues to evolve and become more integrated into day-to-day tasks. However, there is still caution around the balance between human jobs and AI’s growing role, with some employees worrying about the potential for job displacement.
Source: World Economic Forum
To wrap up, here are Chris’s top 3 takeaways from this year’s HubSpot INBOUND:
Find out more about HubSpot's new Marketing Studio.
As a revenue leader, staying ahead of trends is essential for driving growth, optimising team performance, and maintaining a competitive edge. The AI-powered tools and unified platforms highlighted at INBOUND 2025 are not just exciting innovations - they represent a fundamental shift in how revenue teams will operate in the future.
The future of revenue generation is about integration - unifying data, integrating AI into workflows, and fostering collaboration between teams. For revenue leaders, this means embracing AI tools that enhance human performance, ensuring data is clean and accessible, and staying agile enough to take advantage of AI’s ability to optimise marketing and sales efforts in real-time.
By staying ahead of these trends, revenue leaders can scale operations, improve team productivity, and deliver more personalised, efficient customer journeys - all of which will directly impact the bottom line.
To find out more about our HubSpot services and Revenue Transformation solutions, get in touch.