Building Hybrid Teams: What INBOUND 2025 Taught Us About AI

By Nicholas Holland; SVP, Head of AI, HubSpot

This blog post is part of our "Back to Reality, Still Buzzing" series where HubSpot leaders share their insights and takeaways from INBOUND 2025.

At INBOUND this year, one theme was impossible to miss: AI is everywhere. It’s dominated every headline, boardroom, and conference stage. Expectations are sky-high. But when you look closer, the reality is complicated.

At the event, I spoke with business leaders who were stuck between two extremes. Some are waiting to “see how it all pans out,” and others are exhausted from juggling dozens of disconnected AI tools. Different approaches, same result: not enough real progress.

That’s the gap we need to close. AI isn’t just about POCs or slick demos. It’s about how humans and AI work together to help businesses grow.

FROM "AI-FIRST" TO "AI LEADERS"

At HubSpot, we believe the goal isn’t to help businesses be AI-first, but AI leaders. That means applying AI in focused, practical ways that give you leverage—helping you find more customers, connect with them more meaningfully, and deliver greater value.

And leadership requires clarity. For us, it comes down to four pillars:

Assistants that work with every employee: Breeze Assistant, your AI companion, connects to your CRM and business tools so it doesn’t just answer questions, it understands your work.
Agents that work for your teams: Digital teammates like Customer Agent or Prospecting Agent that resolve tickets, engage leads, or research prospects 24/7.
Embedded AI features that accelerate your company: What I like to call ‘Sparks’—over 100 AI capabilities built directly into Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs to make every workflow faster.
Unified data as the foundation: Because without connected, structured and unstructured data, AI can’t truly deliver.

THE FUTURE IS HYBRID TEAMS

What excites me most is what happens when these elements come together. Imagine hybrid teams where humans and AI teammates work side by side. Assistants helping you prep for meetings, agents prospecting while you sleep, and embedded AI features saving you time in every click.

This isn’t about replacing people. It’s about giving people leverage so marketers can spend more time strategizing, sales reps can focus on high-value conversations, and support teams can deliver faster, more personal service.

A PRACTICAL PATH FORWARD

If you’re overwhelmed by the noise, here’s where I’d start building your AI team.

Connect your data. Bring structured CRM records, unstructured conversations, and external insights together so AI has full context.
Give your team an assistant. Breeze Assistant connects to your CRM and third-party tools, so it actually knows your business.
Add your first agent. Customer Agent is a great place to start because it works with all your go-to-market teams.
Explore Breeze Marketplace for additional agents and assistants to expand your team, and customize them with Breeze Studio.

Do those four things, and you’re an AI leader. Not because you’re using the most tools, but because you’re getting real results with AI.

The companies that move decisively in this platform shift will thrive. The ones that wait will fall behind. My advice to every customer I spoke with at INBOUND was simple: AI leadership isn’t about being first - it’s about being focused.

INBOUND is always a launchpad, never a finish line. Here’s to the road ahead. See you in 2026.

Building Hybrid Teams: What INBOUND 2025 Taught Us About AI

FROM "AI-FIRST" TO "AI LEADERS"

THE FUTURE IS HYBRID TEAMS

A PRACTICAL PATH FORWARD