How to use AI in HubSpot CRM: A practical guide for 2026

Let's be honest, "AI" is a term that gets thrown around a lot. If you're like most people, you just want to know how you can actually use it to save some time and cut down on tedious work. You're not trying to launch a robot takeover, you're just trying to get through your to-do list without staying late again.

If that sounds about right, this guide is for you. We're going to walk through the real-world steps for using the AI features already waiting for you inside HubSpot CRM. From marketing and sales to customer service, we’ll cover how to put these tools to work, minus the fluff.

What you'll need to get started

Before we jump in, let’s make sure you have a couple of things ready. This will help you follow along and get the most out of this guide.

• A HubSpot account. Any plan will give you access to some basic AI features, but you'll get the more powerful tools with Professional or Enterprise tiers for Sales Hub, Marketing Hub, or Service Hub.

• Admin access to your HubSpot portal. You’ll need this to switch on the AI settings for your team.

• A task in mind. Think about a repetitive job you'd love to offload. Maybe it's drafting welcome emails, summarizing call notes, or answering the same customer questions day after day.

Finding and turning on features

You can't use the tools if you don't know where to find them. HubSpot has made this pretty simple, but let's walk through it so you know exactly where to click.

Getting to the AI settings

You'll need to grant access before your team can start using any of the generative AI tools.

1. In your HubSpot account, click the settings icon in the top navigation bar.

2. In the left sidebar menu, look for the AI section.

3. On the Access tab, you'll see a few toggles. The main one is "Give users access to generative AI tools and features." Go ahead and flip that on.

4. It's also smart to turn on the "CRM Data" toggle. This lets the AI use your CRM data to come up with more personalized content, which is a huge part of what makes it so helpful.

Spotting AI in your day-to-day work

Once everything is switched on, you'll start seeing a little diamond icon popping up around the platform. This is "Breeze," HubSpot's AI assistant.

This icon is your cue. Whenever you see it, it means you can get a hand generating content, summarizing information, or getting quick insights without having to leave the page you're on. It’s built right into your workflow, which makes it incredibly convenient.

Easing your marketing workload

For marketing teams, AI can be a huge help for getting over common hurdles like writer's block or the never-ending job of repurposing content. Here’s how you can use it to get things done a bit faster.

Using AI for content creation

Whether you're writing a blog post or an email, HubSpot's AI can give you a solid head start.

• Blog Posts: When you're in the blog editor, you can use the slash command ("/") to pull up the AI menu. From there, you can ask it to generate blog ideas, create a detailed outline, or even write a full first draft. It's a great way to get past that blinking cursor on a blank page.

• Marketing Emails: The same tools are available in the email editor. You could ask the AI to whip up a few interesting subject lines for an A/B test or draft body copy aimed at a specific audience you've built in your CRM.

Repurposing content with Content Remix

This is one of the biggest time-savers for any content marketer. The Content Remix tool lets you take one great, high-performing asset, like a long blog post, and quickly break it down into different formats.

With a few clicks, you can turn that single piece of content into a bunch of social media posts, an email newsletter, or a few shorter articles. Instead of spending hours manually pulling out snippets and reformatting them, the AI handles the grunt work for you.

Boosting your sales process

Sales often comes down to intuition and building relationships, but AI can bring a helpful layer of data into the mix. It helps your team rely less on guesswork and focus their energy on the leads that are most likely to convert.

Smarter lead scoring and forecasting

HubSpot's predictive lead scoring is a perfect example of this. Instead of you having to manually set up a bunch of rules (like "if lead watches webinar, add 10 points"), the AI looks at all your historical data to figure out what your best customers have in common. It then automatically scores new leads based on how closely they match that profile, pointing you toward who's most likely to close.

Similarly, AI-powered deal forecasting gives sales managers a much more realistic pipeline projection. It analyzes the data behind each deal, not just a sales rep's gut feeling, to predict how likely it is to close. This helps you build forecasts you can actually trust.

Saving time with call summaries and email drafts

No sales rep enjoys listening back to a 45-minute call just to find the action items. HubSpot can automatically transcribe and summarize recorded sales calls, pulling out key takeaways, customer objections, and next steps. It's a simple feature that saves a ton of time and lets reps move on to their next call.

The AI email writer is just as handy. It can draft a personalized follow-up email in seconds, pulling in context from the CRM so the rep can just review, tweak, and hit send.

Improving customer service

When it comes to customer service, HubSpot has some great native AI tools to get you started. But to deliver truly helpful support, your AI can be even more effective when it has access to the full story across all your platforms.

Starting with HubSpot's native service AI

Inside HubSpot, you can use the AI chatbot builder to create bots that handle common questions on your website. They're great for answering things like "What are your business hours?" or "Where's my invoice?"

You can also use the inbox assistant to help your human agents. It can summarize long ticket threads so an agent can get up to speed quickly or draft replies to common questions. Both are solid starting points for making your team more efficient.

Scaling support by connecting more knowledge

HubSpot's AI is incredibly capable, and it performs best when it can draw from all available data. While much of your information is stored within HubSpot, some specialized technical answers might reside in other tools your company uses, like a Confluence article, a Google Doc, or a conversation in Slack.

By connecting these additional sources, you can ensure your support setup is as comprehensive as possible. This allows your agents to stay within their HubSpot workflow while having all the information they need at their fingertips, leading to faster resolutions and a better experience for your customers.

graph TD A[Customer asks a technical question] --> B{HubSpot AI}; B --> C{Searches HubSpot KB}; C -- Finds Answer --> I[Instant reply]; C -- Needs more info --> D[Connect external knowledge]; D --> E[Confluence]; D --> F[Google Docs]; D --> G[Slack]; E --> H{Full Context Found}; F --> H; G --> H; H --> I[Comprehensive reply to customer];

Connecting all your knowledge with eesel AI

This is where eesel AI serves as a valuable addition to your ecosystem. It's an AI platform that connects to your help desk and syncs with your various knowledge sources to make your HubSpot setup even more powerful. It works with the tools you already use, keeping your current workflows intact.

Here’s what makes it a great fit:

• It brings all your knowledge together. eesel AI connects to over 100 sources like Confluence, Google Docs, and past tickets. This provides your AI with a complete picture, allowing it to answer customer questions with even more confidence.

• You can be live in minutes. eesel AI is designed to be user-friendly and self-serve. You can sign up, connect your sources, and get your AI running quickly, usually in less than an hour.

• You can test it out with simulation mode. Before your AI interacts with customers, you can run it on your past tickets. This gives you a clear idea of how it will perform and how much time it can save your team, making for a smooth and predictable rollout.

Best practices for using AI in HubSpot

As you start using these tools, keep a few things in mind to make sure you're getting good results.

• Treat AI as a first draft. Think of anything the AI generates as a starting point. It’s a huge time-saver, but adding a human touch ensures the content is accurate and perfectly aligned with your brand voice.

• Give it feedback. Use the feedback features in HubSpot to let the models know when they've done a good job. This helps the system learn your preferences over time.

• Provide comprehensive knowledge. The most helpful support AI has access to all your team's knowledge. By using a tool like eesel AI to complement HubSpot, you ensure your agents and bots have every piece of information they need to be successful.

Put AI to work the smart way

HubSpot's built-in AI tools are a fantastic way to streamline your internal marketing and sales tasks. They help you create content faster, focus your sales efforts, and automate repetitive work with ease.

When it comes to customer service, you can reach even higher levels of efficiency by ensuring your AI has a complete view of your company's data. To deliver truly accurate and helpful automated support, connecting your specialized knowledge bases to your HubSpot ecosystem is the way to go.

Ready to connect your company's knowledge and improve your HubSpot support workflows? Get started with eesel AI and see how it works on your own data in minutes.