HubSpot Inbound 2023: Welcome to the age of artificial intelligence

Date

28/09/2023

Every year, HubSpot brings together a wide range of experts from the fields of sales, marketing and customer experience at the "Inbound" trade fair. We also attended the event in Boston and asked around and exchanged views on what contemporary marketing looks like and what new tips and tricks we can use to inspire our customers. What particularly moved marketers this year? Specialist presentations, customer-centric strategies and the power of storytelling were important topics, but none were given as much space as artificial intelligence.

Oscar winners, sales professionals, neuroscientists, marketing executives, award-winning athletes and other industry trailblazers presented inspiring and insightful ideas on the main stage for three days. A total of around 11,000 experts and marketers gathered in Boston - including Magnus Philipp from RYZE Digital.

One topic that not only featured in panel discussions, but also dominated the conversations in the hall's corridors: AI. "The topic of AI was extremely interesting. There was a lot of debate about whether it will have negative or positive consequences in the future. There were very diverse opinions," summarises Magnus. As a platform for marketing automation, HubSpot in particular can benefit from artificial intelligence to make marketing strategies more efficient.

At the same time, the field of AI is characterised by constant development, as Meghan Keaney Anderson, former VP of Marketing at HubSpot and now Head of Marketing at Jasper, noted: whether prompt engineering will actually become as important as was initially assumed is questionable, as the usability of artificial intelligence is developing more and more towards natural language.

Participants at Inbound 2023 were also concerned about job security, as it is currently impossible to predict how much disruption AI will cause. HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah had an optimistic forecast for the attendees: "AI will replace your job and give you an even better one."

But these are topics for the future. The fact is: AI is already changing marketing today. In a spotlight presentation, HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan explained the current impact of AI: customers are interacting with products and companies differently today because search and information habits have changed. She therefore suggested four ways in which companies can adapt: Chatbots as a direct channel to interact with the company, an adapted content strategy with AI, a shift in the sales formula to a more insight-driven approach and a proactive approach to service that can be supported by AI.

"When it comes to artificial intelligence, Inbound was a very important event. Many different perspectives came together here to discuss one of the most important current topics and to show strategies on how to use AI specifically for yourself and your customers," summarises Magnus.

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HubSpot extends the functions of the various hubs with the help of artificial intelligence.

Just how profoundly artificial intelligence will change HubSpot itself also became clear during Inbound. Andy Pitre, a member of the product team at HubSpot, presented several new functions and updates to the platform. According to Magnus, these are particularly relevant for RYZE Digital:

As a HubSpot Diamond partner, it is extremely important for us to stay up to date here. We offer our customers direct advice and want to support them on their way to greater sales and marketing performance. To do this, we have to become AI experts in the field ourselves."

Magnus Philipp,
HubSpot Practice Lead,
RYZE Digital

The upcoming changes at HubSpot were correspondingly exciting: Andy Pitre explained that companies need to adapt to the new customer journey - a challenge, but an essential change nonetheless. He presented HubSpot AI, a collection of AI functions for the entire platform, which includes assistants, agents, predictive insights and ChatSpot. He also showed the new Sales Hub, which will include new prospecting tools, deal management tools and AI predictions. The Service Hub will be enhanced with a new helpdesk and support assistant, as well as CRM UI features for customisable CRM experiences. These are significant changes for a platform that is now connected to over 1,500 apps and integrations, has 6,000 solution partners working on it and is used by around 3.2 million people worldwide.

"At Inbound, it became clear that major changes are coming for us as HubSpot experts. But at the same time, the new tools and methods for creating modern marketing are exciting. This was particularly important to learn about the Great Migration, i.e. the move from other CRM systems such as Salesforce to HubSpot. This enables us to advise customers in the best possible way and know which future features will help them with sales and marketing," summarises Magnus.

RYZE in dialogue with other experts

Aside from important discussions about the future of marketing, Inbound offered even more: a free exchange with marketing experts from all over the world.

"It was a very relaxed atmosphere, especially at the evening events. With music, food and beer, you could gain valuable insights into the working methods of other marketing agencies or have the use of HubSpot explained to you directly from a customer perspective," says Magnus. For him, the week was an instructive training programme, albeit exhausting: "There were so many insights, for example an interesting interview with Reese Witherspoon about her company Hello Sunshine and her growth strategy or the talk with neurobiologist Andrew Huberman, who spoke about concentration and creativity. Together with the specialist presentations and the exchange with other marketing experts, there was a lot of creative input on how we as an agency can best advise our clients on the upcoming changes brought about by AI and further develop our own approaches."

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