We’ve all been there. A sales rep is frantically skimming through a dozen emails and a handful of CRM notes two minutes before a call, trying to piece together a customer's history. Or maybe a support agent asks a frustrated customer to repeat their issue for the third time because the context is buried deep in a previous ticket. Teams burn so much time just trying to get up to speed.
HubSpot’s Breeze AI has a built-in feature to tackle this exact problem: "Breeze Summarize Records". It’s designed to give you a quick snapshot of a customer's journey, which is great for teams living entirely inside the HubSpot world. But it has some pretty big limitations if your company's knowledge is spread across different tools.
Let's break down what this feature is, how it works, and where it shines. We'll also get real about its downsides and look at a more flexible way to get the insights your team actually needs.
What is the Breeze Summarize Records feature in HubSpot?
Simply put, the "Breeze Summarize Records" feature is a tool within HubSpot’s Breeze AI suite that automatically creates short summaries of records in your CRM. This covers contacts, companies, deals, and tickets.
Think of it as a helpful assistant that scans all the relevant data on a record and spits out the highlights. It pulls information from activities like calls and emails, internal notes, and other properties logged directly in HubSpot. You can get these summaries in a few different ways:
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Breeze Copilot: You can manually pop open the AI assistant and ask it to summarize a record for you on the spot.
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HubSpot Workflows: You can set up an automation that generates a summary as part of a bigger process.
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Record Summary Card: A summary often appears by default on the record page itself, giving you a quick, at-a-glance view.
Basically, it's HubSpot's way of using AI to make your CRM data a bit easier to digest and save your team from digging through records manually.
How Breeze Summarize Records works
To get a better feel for how this works in practice, let’s look at its main applications inside HubSpot.
Automating summaries with workflows
Probably the most useful application is the "Summarize record" action within the HubSpot Workflows tool. This is where you can put the AI on autopilot. For instance, you could create a workflow that triggers whenever a new lead fills out a form or a deal moves to a new stage.
As part of that flow, the "Summarize record" action creates a text summary of that lead or deal. The best part? You can then use that summary in the next steps of your automation, like dropping it into an internal email to a sales rep or logging it in a custom property for later.
Getting quick summaries on the fly
Sometimes you just need a quick briefing on a specific customer without setting up a whole automation. That’s what the Breeze Copilot is for. Your sales and support reps can open the chat assistant and just ask it to summarize a contact, company, or deal. It’s handy for those last-minute research moments before jumping on a call or firing off a reply.
The default summary card
HubSpot also includes an auto-generated summary card that usually shows up on record pages in the middle column or right sidebar. This gives anyone looking at the record a persistent overview without needing to click anything. It’s the most passive way to use the feature, but it keeps important context front and center.
What data is used for summaries?
The quality of any AI summary boils down to the data it can access. "Breeze Summarize Records" builds its summaries using information stored only within HubSpot. This includes:
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Core record properties (like company size, deal amount, or ticket priority).
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Notes logged by your team.
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Logged activities like calls, emails, and meetings.
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Record ownership details.
And here's the first big catch: the summary is only as good as the data that lives inside HubSpot. If important conversations are happening in another helpdesk or your most valuable product info is sitting in external documents, the AI won't see it, and your summaries will be missing key pieces of the puzzle.
Practical use cases for sales and support teams
Despite its limitations, the feature can definitely help streamline some daily tasks and solve a few common headaches.
Prepping for sales meetings faster
Let's say a sales rep has a call with a prospect in 30 minutes. Instead of manually sifting through months of email threads and scattered notes, they can use the summarize feature to get a quick brief on the contact's history, their main interests, and the last time you spoke. This helps them walk into the meeting prepared and ready to talk, not scramble for info.
Smoothing out lead handoffs
When a new lead comes in, you can use a HubSpot workflow to automatically summarize the record and send that summary straight to the assigned rep in a Slack message or email. This gives the rep immediate context on who the lead is and what they’re looking for, all without them having to log into the CRM first. It's a small change that can really speed up response times.
Giving customer support better context
For support teams, context is king. When a new ticket lands, an agent can use the summarize feature to quickly get up to speed on the customer's issue and their recent interactions. This helps avoid that all-too-common scenario where a customer has to repeat their problem over and over to different agents. It leads to faster resolutions and a much less frustrating experience for everyone.
Limitations of Breeze Summarize Records
While the feature is a nice idea, there are a few important catches to be aware of before you start relying on it for everything.
Pricing: It runs on HubSpot credits
Using AI actions like "Breeze Summarize Records" in your workflows isn't free. These actions use up HubSpot Credits, which are part of a pay-as-you-go pricing model. The more you automate, the more you pay. This can lead to unpredictable costs that grow with your team's activity, which isn't ideal for growing businesses. Plus, these AI features are usually locked behind the higher-tier HubSpot Professional or Enterprise plans, putting them out of reach for smaller teams.
Limited to HubSpot data
This is probably the biggest hurdle for most teams. The AI is stuck inside the HubSpot bubble. It can't see your most valuable knowledge if it lives on other platforms. For example, it can't:
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Read your internal wikis in Confluence or Notion.
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Access detailed product specs in your Google Docs.
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Learn from thousands of successfully resolved tickets in a dedicated helpdesk like Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Intercom.
Because it’s missing all this external context, the summaries it produces are often incomplete and don't tell the whole story.
No customization for summaries
The summaries are automatically generated using a standard, one-size-fits-all format. You have very little say over the AI's tone, personality, or the specific information it decides to focus on. It can tell you what happened, but you can't tell it how to tell you.
More importantly, it can't be prompted to do anything complex based on that summary. For instance, it can summarize a customer asking about their order, but it can't actually go look up the order status in Shopify and include that real-time info in its output. It’s a summary tool, not a true workflow sidekick.
eesel AI: A better alternative to Breeze Summarize Records
While "Breeze Summarize Records" is a decent starting point, teams that need genuinely helpful insights from all their company knowledge will hit a wall pretty fast. If those limitations sound familiar, this is where a more connected tool like eesel AI comes into the picture.
Connecting all your company knowledge
eesel AI directly solves the "HubSpot-only" problem. It connects to over 100 sources, including helpdesks, wikis, collaboration tools, and internal docs. This means it can learn from your past tickets in Zendesk, pull procedures from your internal guides in Confluence, and reference technical specs in Google Docs. The result? You get summaries that are far more accurate and complete because they’re based on everything your company knows.
An infographic showing how eesel AI connects to multiple knowledge sources, unlike the siloed approach of Breeze Summarize Records.Building summaries and workflows your way
Unlike the rigid summaries in HubSpot, eesel AI gives you full control. Its powerful prompt editor lets you define the AI's exact tone, personality, and the custom actions it can take. An eesel AI agent can not only summarize a ticket but also perform a real-time order lookup in Shopify, update the ticket status in your helpdesk, and then generate a perfectly toned reply, all in one go. It’s not just summarizing; it’s actually doing the work.
A screenshot of the eesel AI interface, where users can set custom rules and actions, a key advantage over the static Breeze Summarize Records feature.Testing with confidence and paying a predictable price
How can you be sure an AI will work before you let it talk to your customers? With HubSpot, you kind of just have to cross your fingers. With eesel AI, you can use its simulation mode to safely test your AI setup on thousands of your past tickets in a sandbox. This lets you see exactly how it will perform and figure out your potential ROI before you ever go live.
The eesel AI simulation dashboard, which allows teams to test their setup, a feature not available with HubSpot's Breeze Summarize Records.Best of all, eesel AI offers straightforward pricing plans that don't charge you per AI action. This keeps your costs predictable and doesn't punish you for handling more customer conversations.
| Feature | HubSpot Breeze Summarize | eesel AI |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge Sources | HubSpot CRM data only | 100+ integrations (Zendesk, Confluence, GDocs, etc.) |
| Custom Actions | Limited to workflow steps | Fully customizable (API lookups, ticket triage, etc.) |
| Pre-launch Testing | None | Powerful simulation on historical tickets |
| Pricing Model | Consumes HubSpot Credits (variable cost) | Fixed monthly/annual plans (predictable cost) |
Move from simple summaries to smart automation
Look, AI-powered summaries can save a ton of time and give your customer-facing teams the context they need to do their jobs well.
HubSpot's "Breeze Summarize Records" offers a convenient starting point, especially for teams who are all-in on its ecosystem. But it falls short for businesses whose knowledge and workflows are spread across multiple tools. Its reliance on HubSpot-only data, lack of customization, and unpredictable pricing can be major roadblocks for teams looking for a real AI solution.
If you want to move beyond basic summaries and build a truly intelligent, automated, and customized support system, eesel AI is the way to go. It connects all your knowledge, gives you complete control, and lets you automate with confidence.
Ready to unify your knowledge and build an AI agent that works across all your tools? Start your free eesel AI trial today or book a demo to see it in action.
Frequently asked questions
Breeze Summarize Records is an AI feature within HubSpot's Breeze AI suite that automatically generates short summaries of CRM records like contacts, companies, deals, and tickets. Its main purpose is to provide quick insights into customer journeys, saving teams time from manual data digging.
The feature primarily uses data stored exclusively within HubSpot. This includes core record properties, internal notes, and logged activities such as calls, emails, and meetings associated with the specific record.
Yes, you can access summaries in a few ways: manually through Breeze Copilot, automatically by setting up HubSpot Workflows, or by viewing the auto-generated summary card that often appears on the record page itself. This provides flexibility for various team needs.
Its primary limitations include being restricted to HubSpot-only data, meaning it cannot access external knowledge bases or tools. Additionally, summaries are not customizable in tone or focus, and its usage consumes HubSpot Credits, leading to potentially unpredictable costs.
Absolutely. Sales reps can use the feature to quickly get a brief on a contact's history, interests, and recent interactions before a call. This helps them walk into meetings prepared and ready to talk, rather than scrambling for information.
Using Breeze Summarize Records in workflows consumes HubSpot Credits, which operate on a pay-as-you-go model. This means costs can vary based on your team's activity and feature usage, and the AI features are generally available on higher-tier HubSpot Professional or Enterprise plans.
Unfortunately, no. The summaries are automatically generated using a standard format, offering very limited control over the AI's tone, personality, or the specific details it chooses to highlight. It provides a generic overview rather than a tailored one.
