HubSpot Inbound '25 - where shift happens as marketers set out to re-wire AI

Driving from San Francisco airport to my hotel for the annual HubSpot conference, INBOUND 2025, - my first visit to the city in two decades - I was struck by the billboards. Nearly every single one mentioned AI. ‘AI won’t take your job’ , ‘AI powered’, ‘The future is AI’ - on and on they went.

Billboard advertising is as American as applepie, but as enthusiastic as the hype may be, AI is disrupting traditional marketing and sales funnels, and businesses are having to take a serious look at the fundamental structure of those operations.

This year’s HubSpot Inbound ‘25 was all about ‘leaning in’ to AI, and starting to really use it to create strategic business advantage. More than 13,000 people attended the conference which concentrates on the latest trends in inbound marketing and sales, revenue operations, and of course, AI.

In the opening keynote Yamini Rangan, CEO, HubSpot told the audience that organizations are using AI to get more and better information about products and suppliers, completely disrupting traditional inbound sales and marketing funnels. She explained:

Before, sellers like us built strategies to attract buyers to our websites. That playbook was straightforward. It was simple and was called inbound. We drove awareness through brand, we created content, we optimized it for search, and when buyers searched, they clicked and landed on our website. We collected their emails, sent them even more content, and nurtured them as leads, and they became our customers.

But now that process is completely different, Rangan said, with customers using AI to trawl through files on social media like Tiktok, YouTube, Reddit, and through podcasts:

They are swiping, scrolling, and switching apps every few seconds. Buyers used to start with your content on your website, now they are everywhere but your website. AI overviews, and provides the answers at the top of every search. That's a big shift, and it's going to accelerate from here.

But Rangan suggested AI has given sales and marketing teams an opportunity to transform their operations, and grow their businesses in this new AI driven era. And, as you would expect, the company launched a range of AI powered products and agents at Inbound ‘25, as well as its new marketing playbook, Loop to help companies cope with this new world. She commented:

The silver lining is that AI is making it much easier to get to know your customers better, and it can map the intent of those customers to the information they need. And that means buyers get content that feels personal, contextual, relevant, content that converts.

She believes that good content, and focusing on prospective and existing customers through AI-enabled, highly-personalised advertising and marketing will be critical, if organizations are to evolve and achieve success in this new era. She declared:

The Loop is dynamic, always learning and evolving, and at the center is a new kind of partnership between humans and agents. There are four steps. You express who you are. You define your taste, your tone, your point of view, before you bring in AI. Then you have to tailor that message to your customers. You use AI to make those interactions feel very contextual, personal, and relevant. Then you amplify to meet your customers where they are, and you diversify your content across multiple channels. And then finally, you evolve in real time. You iterate effectively and quickly with AI. This is the new growth playbook, human authenticity with AI's efficiency.

Businesses will be able to treat every customer individually, and map their behaviour to give them the information that they need, according to Rangan.

Data first

Of course it all starts with data. Rangan told delegates:

You have to enrich your data with all the intent signals. Did your customer check out your pricing page? Or a competitor. Those are instant signals that tell you what your customer is thinking about.

She said this approach, using this enriched data allows businesses to craft highly targeted messages using AI:

If your customer did check out the pricing page three times, then AI should send a follow up message. ‘Still comparing options, there's a nice breakdown of the pricing plans,’ a nice little nudge. And then through all of it, you stay in the loop and validate the message, because nobody knows your product and your message better than you do.”

Getting higher engagement with your content is every marketer's dream, according to Rangan and now it’s within reach:

It’s working for HubSpot and it's working for our customers. You can have great content, but if you're not where your customers are, it does not matter. Which brings us to Amplify, the heart of the new growth playbook. Amplify is about how you diversify channels to engage your customers where they are.

Shifts

Two AI enabled behavioral shifts have changed the sales and marketing process forever. The first shift is where customers are spending time looking, and the second is how they find answers. Rangan observed:

They’re scrolling on social media, they're listening to podcasts from creators that they trust, and they're reading email newsletters. They're asking questions. They're asking people in Reddit communities and in live events like this, and they want one trusted answer.

Trust and developing relationships were big themes at Inbound ‘25, with a keynote from creator and producer at MKBHD, Marques Brownlee finishing the first day’s programme. His main Youtube channel, where he carries out in-depth tech reviews and analysis has over 20 million subscribers. He believes the key to his success has been building trust with his audiences, evolving with them, and always putting that audience focus first.

Rangan said companies need to rethink how they reach their customers, and use the power of AI to cover all the bases.   She said:

You have to rethink how you reach your customers. Your customers are still out there, and great content matters maybe more than ever. You have to be strategic on social media. You have to be where your customers are, with great video, audio and text content that really engages them.

AI Engine Optimization (AEO) is replacing SEO as business buyers increasingly use AI to find information, and marketing has to reflect that, Rangan argued:

SEO is all about ranking. You just have to show up in the top five links. AEO is about being part of the answer. SEO is about reputation, AEO is about reputation of the sources, but also repetition of your content across multiple high authority sources.  SEO volume was the goal, but in AEO conversion is the game, and this is why we've made AEO the top priority within HubSpot.

Rangan likens the changes in marketing being driven by AI as like moving from being on a big cumbersome ship, to being on a jet ski:

There’s just been a lot of talk lately about AI chaos and search disruption. But here's my hot take. Marketing the last few years has felt very incremental. AB test this, adjust that. Not great. Not fun.  What is ahead is smarter, faster and more human, and just a whole lot more fun. So let’s bring that fun back into marketing, and let’s re=wire how we grow with AI.

My take

There was a lot to unpack at Inbound ‘25. Product launches, AI strategy workshops and even sessions suggesting it might be an idea to just ‘burn down’ current marketing theories. But amongst the AI noise, hype and billboards, attendees that I spoke to were quietly positive and excited about what they might be able to achieve. Some hadn’t begun yet, while others were already seeing good results. Right now HubSpot and its customers seem to be in a good place to make the most of an AI-enabled world.