It seems like every business tool suddenly got an AI makeover, and trying to keep up feels like a full-time job. HubSpot, the big name in CRM and marketing, has jumped in with both feet. They’ve woven a suite of AI tools, which they call Breeze, directly into their platform, promising to help your marketing, sales, and service teams work smarter and faster.
But what does that actually mean for you day-to-day? This guide gives you a straight-up, no-fluff look at what HubSpot AI is, what it does well, and where it misses the mark. We’ll break down the features, get into the nitty-gritty of pricing, and highlight some key limitations, especially for customer support teams that don’t want to ditch the tools they already use and love.
What is HubSpot AI exactly?
First off, HubSpot AI isn’t a single product you can just go out and buy. It’s a bunch of different AI features that are built into the whole HubSpot ecosystem, covering their Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Service Hub.
To wrap it all up nicely, HubSpot has given its AI capabilities a single brand name: Breeze. This framework is the engine that powers everything from drafting blog posts and crunching data to automating sales tasks.
The big idea is to give you a powerful, all-in-one system. HubSpot wants to use AI to improve the data and workflows that are already inside its platform. If your company is fully bought into HubSpot for everything, this can be a pretty sweet deal. But as we’ll see, that "all-in-one" approach has some serious downsides.
A breakdown of key HubSpot AI features
HubSpot’s AI tools are sprinkled throughout its platform, with a little something for everyone in marketing, sales, and customer service. Let’s look at the main parts of the Breeze framework and see what it brings to the table for each team.
Breeze: HubSpot’s AI framework
Breeze is built on three main pillars that are designed to work together inside HubSpot:
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Breeze Copilot/Assistant: Think of this as your daily helper. It pops up right where you’re working to help with things like summarizing customer chats, drafting emails, or pulling reports without you having to switch tabs.
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Breeze Agents: These are AI tools that can handle specific tasks from start to finish on their own. The main agents are the Content Agent for marketing campaigns, the Prospecting Agent for sales outreach, and the Customer Agent for frontline support.
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Breeze Intelligence: This is the data brain of the operation. It works in the background to add more detail to your CRM records from other sources, spot signals that a buyer is interested, and help keep your contact list from becoming a mess.
Key tools for marketing and sales
This is where HubSpot’s AI really puts in the work. The tools are built right into the CRM, making them especially handy for teams focused on bringing in leads and closing deals.
Some of the most useful features include:
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Content Creation: Tools like the AI Blog Writer, Content Remix, and Social Post Generator can help marketing teams whip up drafts for campaigns, social media, and websites. It really helps cut down the time it takes to get new content published.
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Lead Management: AI-powered lead scoring and predictive analytics help sales teams sort through their contacts and zero in on the leads who are most likely to buy. It just makes their outreach a lot more effective.
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Sales Outreach: The Prospecting Agent is a big help for sales reps. It can automatically research target companies and help write personalized outreach emails by pulling information straight from the CRM.
Key tools for customer service
HubSpot also has AI tools for support teams, but this is where the cracks in its closed-system approach start to show. The features include:
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Customer Agent: This is HubSpot’s AI chatbot. It’s built to answer common customer questions by digging up information from your HubSpot Knowledge Base and website.
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Knowledge Base Agent: This tool looks at your support chats and suggests new articles for your help center, helping you turn solved tickets into useful self-service content.
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Conversation Summaries: When an agent needs to jump into an existing ticket, the AI can create a quick summary so they don’t have to waste time reading the entire conversation history.
These features sound great on paper, but they all have one huge catch: they only work if your entire customer service department runs on the HubSpot Service Hub. For the thousands of teams using top-tier help desks, this is a major roadblock.
Getting started with HubSpot AI
Adding HubSpot AI to your toolset isn’t as easy as installing a browser extension. It means committing to the entire HubSpot platform, and that comes with a few things you really need to think about.
The "all-in-one" platform requirement
To unlock the full power of HubSpot’s AI, you have to be a paying customer of one of its main products, like Marketing Hub or Service Hub. The tools are made to work with data that’s already inside HubSpot, which kind of creates a "walled garden."
This can be good for keeping all your data in one spot, but it also means the AI doesn’t know what’s going on outside its walls. If your most valuable information lives in other apps, the AI can’t see it, which makes its answers a lot less helpful.
Limitations for teams using other help desks
This is the biggest headache for most support teams. If your company depends on a specialized help desk like Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Intercom, you can’t just connect HubSpot’s Customer Agent to your current setup. To use it, you’d have to move your entire support team, agents, tickets, workflows, everything, over to the HubSpot Service Hub.
That’s a massive, expensive, and time-sucking "rip and replace" project that nobody has time for.
In comparison, modern AI platforms like eesel AI are built to connect, not control. eesel AI is designed to plug right into the tools you’re already using. You get to keep the help desk your team loves while adding powerful, customizable AI in just a few minutes. It’s a completely different mindset that respects the tools and workflows you’ve already built.
eesel AI's integration capabilities, showing how it connects with various help desks and tools, which is a key differentiator from HubSpot AI's closed system.HubSpot AI: Pricing and limitations
Trying to figure out how much HubSpot AI actually costs can be confusing because it isn’t just one item on an invoice. The price is tied to their subscription plans and a new credits system that can make your monthly bill a bit of a guessing game.
A look at HubSpot’s pricing plans
While a few very basic AI features are available on HubSpot’s free and starter plans, the really impactful tools are kept behind their more expensive tiers.
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To get advanced features like the Breeze Agents and predictive lead scoring, you need a Professional plan, which kicks off at $800 per month.
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For the most powerful tools, you’ll need the Enterprise plan, starting at a whopping $3,600 per month.
On top of these steep subscription fees, HubSpot has also rolled out HubSpot Credits. Certain AI tasks, like having a chat with the Customer Agent, use up these credits. This means you’re not just paying a flat subscription; you’re also paying for how much you use it, which can lead to some unpleasant surprises on your bill during busy months.
The problem with closed systems and vendor lock-in
The "all-in-one" approach has a hidden cost: vendor lock-in. Once all your data, workflows, and AI are wrapped up in a single platform, it becomes incredibly painful and expensive to ever leave.
This kills your ability to adapt. If a better, more innovative tool comes out for a specific job, you can’t easily switch without breaking your whole system. You’re stuck with whatever your one provider decides to give you.
This is a world away from eesel AI’s philosophy of playing nicely with the best tools out there. eesel AI connects with your whole stack of tools, giving you the freedom to pick the best help desk, wiki, or chat app for your team. It works with your tools, not against them.
How eesel AI compares to HubSpot AI
The difference is pretty stark when you put them side-by-side.
| Feature | HubSpot AI | eesel AI |
|---|---|---|
| Setup Time | Weeks to months (requires moving platforms) | Go live in minutes (self-serve setup) |
| Tool Integration | Locked into the HubSpot ecosystem | Plugs into Zendesk, Freshdesk, Slack, Confluence, etc. |
| Knowledge Sources | Mainly HubSpot CRM and Knowledge Base | Pulls knowledge from past tickets, docs, wikis, & more |
| Customization | Pre-set agent roles and limited actions | Fully customizable prompts, actions, and workflows |
| Pricing Model | Confusing tiers + usage-based credits | Simple, predictable plans with no per-resolution fees |
| Pre-Launch Testing | Limited previews | Test on historical tickets to see how it works before you go live |
Making the right choice for your team
So, what’s the final take? HubSpot AI is a solid, deeply connected solution for companies that are already running their entire business on the HubSpot platform. If your whole go-to-market strategy lives and breathes in their CRM, its AI features can add some real value.
But for customer support teams that value flexibility, speed, and control, HubSpot’s "walled garden" creates some serious issues. The high costs, the risk of being locked in, and the need to abandon your current help desk are pretty big hurdles.
At the end of the day, the best AI tool is one that fits into your workflow, not one that makes you change your workflow to fit it. For top-notch support, that means choosing a tool that makes your specialized help desk even better.
A flexible alternative for world-class support
For teams that want the power of AI without having to give up their favorite tools, eesel AI is the obvious answer. It was built from day one to be the flexible, powerful, and easy-to-use solution that modern support teams have been looking for.
Here’s what makes eesel AI different:
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Go live in minutes, not months: It’s a truly self-serve platform that you can set up on your own, no mandatory demos or sales calls needed.
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Keep your help desk: eesel AI connects smoothly with Zendesk, Freshdesk, Intercom, and tons of other tools you already have.
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Total control: A powerful workflow engine lets you customize automation rules, AI prompts, and API actions to match your exact needs.
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Straightforward pricing: Our plans are predictable, with no surprise per-resolution fees that punish you for doing a great job.
Ready to see how easy it is to add a powerful AI agent to your existing support setup? Start building your AI agent with eesel AI for free.
Frequently asked questions
HubSpot AI, branded as "Breeze," is a suite of AI features woven into HubSpot’s Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs. Its goal is to automate tasks, generate content, and provide insights across customer-facing teams, making workflows smarter and faster within the HubSpot ecosystem.
HubSpot AI is not a standalone product; it’s a collection of AI functionalities integrated directly into HubSpot’s existing platform. To access its features, you need to be a paying customer of one of HubSpot’s main products, like Marketing Hub or Service Hub.
HubSpot AI’s support tools, like the Customer Agent, are primarily designed to work exclusively within the HubSpot Service Hub. This means you would generally need to migrate your entire customer service operation to HubSpot to leverage its AI for support, which can be a significant undertaking.
Beyond the base subscription for Professional ($800/month) or Enterprise ($3,600/month) plans, HubSpot AI also uses a credits system. Certain AI tasks consume these credits, which means your total cost can fluctuate based on usage, potentially leading to variable monthly bills.
The biggest limitation for specialized support teams is the "walled garden" approach; HubSpot AI requires you to fully commit to the HubSpot Service Hub. This prevents integration with popular external help desks and forces a complete "rip and replace" of existing, beloved tools and workflows.
Yes, the "all-in-one" platform requirement for HubSpot AI can lead to significant vendor lock-in. Once your data, workflows, and AI capabilities are deeply embedded within the HubSpot ecosystem, it becomes extremely difficult and costly to switch to alternative tools later on.
