Our marketing team recently attended HubSpot’s annual INBOUND conference in Boston, Mass. with over 11,000 business, marketing, and sales professionals to network and learn from HubSpot leaders and top industry experts. “INBOUND takes the best of our work – the culture, the innovation, the creativity – and propels it forward for the collective good,” said Yamini Rangan, HubSpot CEO. “It’s where careers take off, businesses begin to scale, and community changes us for the better."

From educational sessions to podcast recordings to real-time debates, our team always looks forward to this conference as a way to learn new tools and best practices to bring back to our clients.

With all of the recent buzz surrounding artificial intelligence, our team had an inkling that the conference would have sessions and themes on the topic — and they were right. The overarching theme (and focal point of most sessions) was AI and the importance of its adoption.

Our Future is AI

Like every year, Yamini Rangan and Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder and CTO, kicked off the conference with their highly anticipated spotlight session. Their session inspired the crowd to not be afraid of change and how AI has the potential to truly transform knowledge and creative work. 

Dharmesh Shah and Andy Pitre, EVP of Product, introduced numerous new products and updates to the HubSpot platform that are now integrated with artificial intelligence. Now in public beta, HubSpot AI provides partners with new tools to drive efficiency and work smarter. Tools like Content Assistant, Campaign Assistant, and Website Assistant revolutionize marketing strategies and provide marketers with new, creative ways to develop content. 

Connection Matters

Another common theme throughout the conference was connecting communities, and the importance connection plays in order for success to happen. During the kickoff session, Yamini emphasized that connection matters because it drives growth offering some interesting stats:

• Companies that focus on customer connection grow 5x more than the average company. 
• Connecting consistently throughout the customer journey drives 19% more growth. 

Connection remained a popular topic outside the kickoff meeting, where we attended the panel “Build Connected Communities” with Daniel Murray, Founder of The Marketing Millennials, Ari Murray, VP of Growth at Sharma Brands, Jay Schwedelson, CEO and Founder of Outcome Media/SubjectLine.com/GURU Events, Christina Garnett, Principal Marketing Manager at HubSpot, and Troy Sandidge, Founder and Principal Growth Strategist at Strategy Hackers. They discussed what community meant to them, and it was clear they all agreed community is a result of many different factors, not specific but based on connections, overlaps, and commonalities.

Communities offer immediate feedback, whether it translates into metrics, reactions, or quick feedback, it’s crucial for the success of a company to have. Composed of many facets, connections amongst communities come from shared energy, with common goals that can bring groups of people together. This fosters an environment where results are shared and positive changes can be made.

Customer connection drives growth and AI can drive that connection at scale. With the shift from the age of information and predictive AI to the age of intelligence and generative AI, we are eager to innovate and grow with the help of HubSpot. Our team left the conference excited to bring these new ideas to our clients as we continue to adapt to this ever-evolving industry.