How to integrate AI with HubSpot: A complete 2026 guide

It seems like everyone is talking about how AI can revolutionize sales, marketing, and service, especially within a mature and powerful platform like HubSpot. The promise is clear: let AI handle the repetitive tasks, pull smarter insights from your data, and help you create personalized experiences that resonate with your customers.

Because HubSpot is such a comprehensive platform, there are several effective ways to approach integration. This guide will walk you through the three main ways you can get AI and HubSpot working together: using HubSpot's own native tools, connecting external models like OpenAI, or bringing in a unified AI platform. By the time you're done reading, you’ll have a much clearer idea of which path is right for your team.

Understanding HubSpot's native AI, Breeze

Breeze is HubSpot's homegrown suite of AI tools. It’s not one single product but a collection of features designed to work seamlessly with the data you already have sitting in your CRM.

It's split into a few key components:

• Breeze Assistant: Think of this as your personal AI helper for day-to-day tasks like drafting content, prepping for meetings, or running analysis on your CRM data.

• Breeze Agents: These are specialized, acting like AI-powered teammates that can handle specific jobs, like prospecting for your sales team or answering customer service questions.

• Embedded AI features: These are the helpers integrated throughout the platform, like the AI Blog Writer, AI Email Writer, and the Reporting Assistant that help streamline your daily operations.

For teams already deep in the HubSpot world, Breeze is the most obvious and reliable place to start. It’s highly effective at tasks that utilize information stored inside your HubSpot portal.

Option 1: Using HubSpot's native AI in workflows

This is the most straightforward route. You’re using the tools HubSpot provides right out of the box, which means they fit perfectly into the platform's interface and the workflows you're used to.

Key features and common use cases

The heart of HubSpot's AI automation is the "Ask Breeze" action you can drop into your workflows. You can use it to generate text, summarize info, or update properties based on a prompt you feed it.

Here are a few practical examples of what that looks like:

• Qualifying leads: You could set up a workflow that looks at a new form submission and uses Breeze to assign a lead score based on the info provided.

• Drafting follow-ups: When a deal moves to a new stage, you can automatically create a task for a sales rep with a pre-written follow-up email drafted by Breeze, ready for a personal touch.

• Standardizing data: If your data needs organizing, like having various spellings for country names ("USA," "United States"), you can use a Breeze workflow to clean it up and keep your property values consistent.

Understanding the focus of HubSpot's native AI

Breeze is designed to be a secure and focused assistant. It is optimized to work exceptionally well with data that's inside HubSpot, ensuring your CRM remains a single source of truth and your customer data stays protected.

Because HubSpot focuses on maintaining a high-quality internal database, it is designed for CRM-centric tasks. For teams that need to expand these capabilities to include real-time, external web browsing, the HubSpot marketplace offers various integrations that work alongside Breeze.

HubSpot offers different tiers to ensure businesses of all sizes can find a plan that matches their needs, with advanced AI features available in its premium tiers for teams looking to scale.

HubSpot AI pricing and tiers

HubSpot provides tiered plans to match different team sizes. Most of the AI automation tools that power high-level workflows are part of HubSpot's Professional and Enterprise plans, which include specialized onboarding to help you succeed.

Feature tier	Starting price	Professional onboarding	Key AI features included
Professional	$800/month	$3,000	Breeze actions in workflows, Data agent (Beta)
Enterprise	$3,600/month	$7,000	Everything in Pro + Customer journey automation, Lookalike Lists (Beta)

These plans provide a robust foundation for growing teams, including expert-led onboarding programs designed to ensure your AI strategy is optimized from day one.

Option 2: Integrating external AI models like OpenAI

If you have specific needs that go beyond native features, the next step is a more hands-on approach. This involves connecting HubSpot to external AI models, like the ones from OpenAI.

Using the official HubSpot OpenAI integration

HubSpot has an "Ask OpenAI Assistant" action for workflows that lets you plug in your own OpenAI account.

The upside is that this gives you access to a wide range of models. You can write complex prompts and get sophisticated answers. However, it also comes with its own set of considerations:

• You have to set up and manage a separate OpenAI account and keep your API key secure.

• You get billed directly by OpenAI for every API call your workflow makes. This usage-based cost can be difficult to budget for as your automations grow.

• The setup is more technical, requiring some internal expertise to manage the connection.

Using the HubSpot connector for ChatGPT

HubSpot also offers a connector for ChatGPT, which gives ChatGPT read-only access to your HubSpot data. That means you can ask it questions and get analysis outside of HubSpot.

This is a great analytical tool for research. It allows you to gather insights and prepare reports based on your data, though it doesn't trigger workflows or update records inside HubSpot itself.

The flexibility of custom and low-code solutions

For maximum customization, some teams use third-party automation platforms like n8n or Make. These tools let you build custom connections between HubSpot, OpenAI, and other apps in your stack.

While this gives you control, it's also a technically demanding option. You'll need someone with the skills to build, test, and maintain these workflows to ensure they continue running smoothly as your processes evolve.

Option 3: Using a unified AI platform

This leads us to a modern, balanced approach. Instead of choosing between a native tool and a complex custom setup, you can use a unified AI platform. This provides powerful AI capabilities that complement your HubSpot setup without the need for extensive manual management.

A platform like eesel AI is built for exactly this scenario. It plugs directly into the tools you already use, including HubSpot, serving as an enhancement that works within your existing ecosystem.

How a unified platform helps

A unified platform is designed to extend the capabilities of your CRM.

• Unified knowledge: While Breeze focuses on your CRM data, eesel AI connects to various company knowledge sources. It can learn from your Confluence pages, Google Docs, past support tickets, and more. This provides a broader context that works alongside your HubSpot data.

• Custom actions & external lookups: You can configure eesel AI with "AI Actions" to perform real-time lookups using any API. For instance, you could build an automation where an eesel AI agent summarizes a prospect's website and adds that summary as a note on their HubSpot contact record. This allows your AI to interact with the outside world while keeping the data inside HubSpot.

• Self-serve & simple setup: You can get started with eesel AI on your own in just a few minutes. It's an accessible option that works alongside HubSpot's premium features to provide immediate value.

A smarter way: Testing and control

One of the best ways to ensure performance is through simulation. eesel AI’s simulation mode allows you to test your AI agent on historical HubSpot records to see how it would have responded in past situations. This gives you a clear forecast of its performance before it ever runs in a real workflow.

This kind of testing is a great way to build confidence in your AI strategy. You also get fine-grained control, allowing you to decide exactly which types of contacts, deals, or tickets the AI should handle, ensuring a gradual and successful rollout.

Choosing the right integration method

So, what's the best move for you? It boils down to your team's needs, budget, and how you want to manage your technical setup.

1. HubSpot native AI (Breeze): This is the ideal choice for internal automations, especially if you’re already on a premium HubSpot plan and want a secure, native experience for your CRM data.

2. External/Custom AI (OpenAI): This path is great for technical teams who have very specific requirements and the in-house talent to build and maintain their own custom solutions.

3. Unified AI platform (eesel AI): For many businesses, this is a perfect middle ground. It offers a powerful and easy-to-manage solution that connects HubSpot to all your other tools and knowledge sources.

If you want to unlock AI automations for real-world scenarios that require awareness of information outside your CRM, a complementary platform designed for that purpose is a practical and scalable solution.

Ready to see how a unified AI platform can boost your HubSpot workflows without all the complexity? Sign up and build your first AI agent with eesel AI in minutes.