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The Gist
- Generative AI tools. HubSpot’s annual conference and product showcase opens today.
- AI focus. HubSpot rolls out a new suite of generative AI tools with HubSpot AI.
- Enhanced features: Sales Hub gets an AI makeover.
With a sold-out audience expected to draw 11,000 attendees from across the globe, HubSpot INBOUND 2023, the company’s annual conference and product showcase, opens today to reveal a new suite of generative AI tools.
A New Suite of Generative AI Tools
The company’s biggest reveal?
HubSpot AI is a new suite of generative AI tools and features. Among them, AI Assistants — generative AI tools intended to facilitate various tasks for marketing, sales and customer service teams. According to HubSpot, AI Assistants will function across their entire platform to assist teams in drafting content, generating blog ideas, creating images, building websites and developing reports.
Related Article: The Evolution of AI Chatbots: Past, Present and Future
AI Insights for Predictive Analytics
Also new — AI Insights, built to provide predictive analytics and recommendations, with AI-powered forecasting. And released in alpha in March, HubSpot’s ChatSpot is now currently in public beta. According to company officials, since launching, ChatSpot has seen 80,000 total users with 20,000 prompts created. Also slated for release in early 2024, an AI Agents feature automates and enhances customer service capabilities and is designed to operate across live chat and email services.
Related Article: HubSpot Debuts AI Tools Fueled by OpenAI’s ChatGPT
HubSpot’s Sales Hub Unveils Generative AI Tools for Automation
Just ahead of the conference, Olsen Antos, director of marketing at CETDIGIT, posted to LinkedIn, and said that he’s hoping to see new features announced in the Sales Hub, adding that, “Given HubSpot’s increasing focus on revenue operations and enabling self-service, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more AI-driven automation capabilities.”
Antos will get his wish.
Optimizing Sales Processes
HubSpot’s Sales Hub rolled out a series of new features aimed at optimizing sales processes for teams including prospecting workspace. Currently in public beta, this feature is designed to offer sales representatives a unified platform for managing prospecting activities and to help reps organize, focus and identify urgent tasks in one centralized location.
Lead Management & Reporting Features
Also in public beta, advanced lead management and reporting features have been introduced to enhance the tracking, organization and prioritization of leads. This includes reports for lead source, contact rate and prospecting activities and offers a comprehensive view of the success rate of representative outreach, including metrics on conversion rates and activities.
New AI Powered Functionalities
Further, new AI-powered functionalities are geared toward helping sales teams prioritize and predict sales efforts more efficiently, including AI Forecasting, currently in private beta. It uses predictive analytics and historical sales data to project future sales as well as deal insights and deal tags to assist reps in prioritizing deals by offering contextual data on the health of their sales pipelines.
Smooth Handoffs
According to HubSpot, the revamped Sales Hub is designed to facilitate smooth handoffs between sales reps — who now have the ability to book meetings on behalf of their teammates — and with lead form routing, presently in public beta, website-generated leads are automatically routed to the appropriate representatives. Additionally, a new integration between HubSpot’s Smart CRM and LinkedIn Sales Navigator, currently in private beta, seeks to consolidate critical data sources for sales teams.
Related Article: Now HubSpot? Marketing, CRM Provider Cuts 500 Jobs
HubSpot Financial Growth Tempered by Losses
HubSpot’s last financial quarterly update included a year-over-year gain in revenue from the three months ended June 30 with a revenue of $529.1 million vs. $421.8 million last year at this time. The company reported approximately $1.7 billion in revenue for 2022, up 33% compared to 2021.
But it also reported it generated net losses of $157.2 million and $65.7 million for the six months ended June 30, in 2023 and 2022, respectively. This year, as of June 30, HubSpot had an accumulated deficit of $799.6 million.
Related Article: Related Article: A New Era of AI Transformation in the CRM Industry Arrives
Employee Growth Flattens For HubSpot
From 2018-2022, the company has nearly tripled its employee base with a year-to-year average increase of nearly 30% — going from around 2,639 full-time employees in 2018 to approximately 7,433 in 2022. But for the first time in five years, the number has taken a tumble, to 7,136 full-time employees.
In February, HubSpot slashed 500 jobs, or about 7% of its workforce.
Focusing on Internal Efficiencies & Innovation
At the time, Hubspot CEO Yamini Rangan admitted “headcount grew faster than revenue” and cited the immediate need to “reduce investments” unaligned with its current strategy, including a “double down” on internal efficiencies and product innovation.
“We came into 2022 anticipating growth would slow down from 2021, but we experienced a faster deceleration than we expected,” Rangan said. “The year was challenging due to a perfect storm of inflation, volatile foreign exchange, tighter customer budgets and longer decision-making cycles.”
Related Article: How AI and Data Analytics Drive Personalization Strategies
HubSpot Signals Strategic Shift to Generative AI Tools & Adaptability
Beyond its HubSpot AI and Sales Hub updates, HubSpot unveiled Commerce Hub, currently in public beta, aimed at US customers looking to expedite their opportunity-to-revenue cycles with features like payment links and integrated invoicing. In addition, the company introduced a mobile messaging service that offers both SMS and WhatsApp integration, targeting marketers seeking more direct and personalized customer engagement with generative AI tools. HubSpot also announced enhanced customization options for its Smart CRM.
Keeping an Eye on Customer Needs
In the face of both soaring revenues and significant net losses, HubSpot’s multiple announcements at INBOUND 2023 highlight the company’s strategic focus on generative AI tools and data analytics. With the addition of new features across multiple product lines, the company is signaling its intent to adapt to changing market conditions and customer needs.
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