In this article, we highlight the AI tools currently in HubSpot Sales Hub and show how they effectively address key sales challenges.
According to a recent survey by Inside Sales, reps spend only 35% of their time selling, while the remaining 65% is spent on administrative tasks, research and preparation. This inefficiency prevents teams from realising their full potential, and as sales managers know, lost time often equates to lost revenue.
AI has taken the world by storm, transforming the roles of sales representatives and leaders by reshaping workflows, automating repetitive tasks, enhancing personalisation, and helping teams focus on what truly matters: selling.
In fact, 95% of professionals who use AI report spending less time on manual tasks, and 72% of business leaders say it makes their teams more productive.
As a leader in the CRM and Sales Technology space, HubSot has continuously integrated AI into its platform. With the introduction of new AI capabilities in 2024, HubSpot has reaffirmed its commitment to helping businesses scale by optimising every stage of the sales process, from lead generation and meeting preparation to deal evaluation and call follow-up.
AI in HubSpot Sales Hub: key tools and features
HubSpot Sales Hub offers a range of AI tools to optimise sales processes, allowing teams to focus on high-value tasks. These tools are built into the entire platform and can improve existing workflows by reducing manual effort and increasing productivity across the board.
At the core of HubSpot's AI offering is the automation of time-consuming tasks like prospect research, deal prioritisation, email personalisation, and meeting preparation. This helps sales teams move efficiently through the sales cycle while ensuring that every interaction with prospects or customers is personalised and impactful.
Let's take a closer look at the key AI features and tools in HubSpot Sales Hub.
How AI tools in HubSpot Sales Hub empower Sales teams
- AI-powered prospecting
HubSpot’s Breeze Prospecting Agent is a standout feature, launched in September 2024 at Inbound. This tool automatically identifies high-quality leads by analysing CRM data and external sources, matching prospects with your ideal customer profile. For sales teams, this means less time spent on research and more time engaging with potential customers. Breeze personalises outreach based on a prospect’s business needs, eliminating the guesswork and enabling sales teams to connect in a more meaningful way.
Complementing this is AI Lead Scoring, which prioritises leads based on predictive models. This ensures that your team is always focussed on the most promising opportunities and that sales staff representatives concentrate their efforts on the areas where the best results can be expected. - AI meeting assistant
Preparing for meetings can be a major time drain for many sales teams. The newly launched AI Meeting Assistant (currently in Beta) simplifies this process by pulling data from the CRM, including sales activity history, emails, and call logs.
For sales teams, this means less time scrambling to gather information and more time focused on what really matters - having productive conversations. The meeting assistant provides useful insights about the upcoming meeting, suggests relevant activities, and outlines follow-up actions, helping teams stay organised and ensuring that no opportunity slips through the cracks. - AI email personalisation and content generation
Personalised communication is crucial for sales success. With HubSpot’s AI Email Generation tools, sales teams can create tailored emails based on a prospect’s activity, behaviour, and engagement with content.
This means that where you previously spent time drafting generic follow-ups or initial outreach messages, you can now rely on AI to generate relevant and timely communications, ensuring every interaction resonates with the prospect's needs.
Building on this, the new Breeze Content Agent enhances email personalisation further by suggesting content based on real-time insights, making it easier for sales reps to connect meaningfully. - Predictive deal scoring
HubSpot’s Predictive Deal Scoring tool helps sales teams focus their efforts where it counts. By analysing deal properties and recent activities, it forecasts the likelihood of closing a deal. Rather than spending time on low-potential leads, your sales reps can prioritise high-potential opportunities, increasing their chances of closing deals more quickly and efficiently. - AI-driven forecasting and reporting
AI-powered forecasting and reporting tools in HubSpot automate the generation of sales performance reports and provide insights into the sales pipeline. Sales leaders can make informed, data-driven decisions swiftly, without having to sift through manual reports. It enhances visibility into team performance, enabling timely adjustments to strategies based on real-time data. - Post-call summaries and actionable insights
Following up after calls is a critical yet often neglected step in the sales process. HubSpot’s AI Call Summaries and AI Post-Call Follow-up Recommendations (currently in private beta) streamline this by analysing conversations, extracting key insights, and recommending follow-up actions. This feature ensures that sales teams always know the next steps to take, reducing the chances of deals falling through the cracks and keeping the momentum going.
With AI automating and enhancing core functions, HubSpot Sales Hub helps sales teams not only save time but also improve the quality and consistency of their engagements.
In the next section, we’ll dive deeper into the specific challenges that sales teams face and how HubSpot’s Sales Hub AI tools are designed to solve them.
Solving common sales challenges with HubSpot’s AI Tools
Sales leaders today are under increasing pressure to make their teams more efficient while improving results. However, many of the challenges that sales teams face - time-consuming research, ineffective lead prioritisation, and manual follow-up tasks - still persist.
This is where AI tools can have a significant impact, allowing sales teams to focus on higher-value activities. For companies already using HubSpot Sales Hub, these AI tools offer an opportunity to solve common bottlenecks and improve overall sales performance.
Here’s a closer look at how some of these AI tools can address specific challenges faced by sales teams today.
Challenge 1: Sales reps spend too much time researching prospects
Researching prospects can be one of the most time-consuming parts of a sales rep’s job, and it often takes away from actual selling time.
HubSpot’s Breeze Prospecting Agent helps to automate this process by identifying prospects that closely match your target audience using data from both your CRM and external sources. For example, it can track a prospect’s recent activity, like viewing specific product pages or engaging with certain content, and suggest personalised outreach based on these behaviours.
By taking on the legwork of prospect research, tools like this allow your sales reps to spend more time having meaningful conversations with qualified leads. In practical terms, this could mean the difference between your sales team contacting 10 highly relevant prospects versus spending hours manually searching through hundreds of potential leads.
Challenge 2: Sales emails feel generic, leading to low response rates
Personalised outreach is one of the key drivers of engagement in today’s sales process, but it can be challenging to tailor each message effectively - especially at scale.
AI tools within HubSpot, such as Breeze Content Agent, streamline this process by analysing CRM data and past interactions to suggest personalised email content. These tools take into account the recipient’s recent behaviour, interests, and even pain points, allowing your sales reps to send messages that resonate more deeply with prospects.
For example, if one of your prospects has recently downloaded a whitepaper or engaged with a product demo, the AI tools can suggest email copy that addresses these interactions, making it more relevant and increasing the likelihood of a response.
Challenge 3: Reps aren’t sure which leads to prioritise, leading to wasted time
One of the most common pain points for sales teams is the challenge of lead prioritisation. Without a clear understanding of which leads are most likely to convert, reps can end up wasting time on low-potential opportunities.
HubSpot’s AI Lead Scoring tool helps with this by analysing data from multiple sources - such as previous interactions, deal stages, and activity history - to score and rank leads based on their likelihood to close.
For instance, sales teams can use this feature to quickly identify leads with the highest scores and focus their efforts on those prospects first, while lower-scoring leads can be nurtured with automated workflows until they’re ready for more direct engagement. This approach ensures that reps spend their time where it matters most.
Challenge 4: Preparing for meetings is time-consuming and leaves reps feeling unprepared
Meeting preparation is another area where sales reps can lose a significant amount of time.
The AI Meeting Assistant in HubSpot is designed to reduce the time spent preparing for conversations by pulling together relevant CRM data, past communications, and suggested next steps.
For example, if a rep is about to meet with a prospect, the AI can generate a summary of past interactions, highlight key points discussed, and suggest follow-up actions that align with the prospect’s stated needs or business goals. By automating this preparation, the tool ensures that reps enter meetings well-prepared and confident, without needing to manually sift through call notes or emails beforehand.
Challenge 5: Deals aren’t qualified effectively, resulting in wasted time and resources
A common challenge is ensuring that deals are properly qualified before they move forward. Many deals fall apart because the right questions weren’t asked or key details were missed.
With AI-Generated Playbooks, sales teams can ensure that reps have structured, dynamic guides during calls, tailored to each specific situation.
If a rep is speaking with a potential customer from a particular industry, the AI can suggest industry-specific questions to better qualify the lead. This helps ensure that reps are collecting the right information to make an informed decision on whether the deal is worth pursuing further.
Challenge 6: Post-call follow-ups are unclear, causing delays and missed opportunities
After a sales call, it’s not always obvious what the next steps should be.
HubSpot’s AI Post-Call Follow-up Recommendations can analyse the conversation and suggest specific actions for the sales rep to take, such as sending a follow-up email, scheduling a meeting, or addressing any questions raised during the call.
This feature is particularly useful for ensuring that no critical details are missed and that prospects are followed up with in a timely and relevant manner. It also takes the guesswork out of post-call actions, helping reps stay on track with their follow-ups.
Challenge 7: Sales forecasts are unreliable, making it difficult to predict pipeline performance
Accurate forecasting is essential for sales leaders, but it can be difficult to achieve when relying on manual reporting or incomplete data.
HubSpot’s AI Predictive Deal Scoring and AI Forecasting tools use machine learning to analyse current deal data and forecast future performance based on historical trends.
This helps sales leaders get a clearer picture of their pipeline and make more informed decisions about where to allocate resources. For example, by understanding which deals are most likely to close, teams can better prioritise their efforts and set more realistic revenue targets.
Challenge 8: Generating reports takes too much time and effort
Sales leaders need access to accurate, up-to-date performance data to make informed decisions, but generating reports manually can take valuable time away from other strategic activities.
AI-Generated Reports automate this process, pulling together key metrics and insights from across the CRM into easily digestible formats.
For instance, sales managers can quickly generate reports on team performance, deal progress, or pipeline health without having to manually sift through data. This frees up time for more high-impact activities like coaching and strategy development.
Maximising the value of AI for your sales team
By automating repetitive tasks, enhancing personalisation, and providing actionable insights, HubSpot’s AI tools are designed to help sales teams focus on what matters most: building relationships and closing deals.
Whether your team is struggling with lead prioritisation, deal qualification, or simply making better use of their time, these AI-driven solutions can support more efficient, scalable sales processes.
Now that we've explored how AI tools in HubSpot’s Sales Hub can solve common challenges, the next step is understanding how to maximise their value within your sales team.
Here’s how to ensure you’re making the most of HubSpot’s AI tools.
1. Align AI tools with your sales process
The first step is to map out your existing sales process and identify where HubSpot’s AI tools can have the biggest impact. For example, if your team struggles with lead qualification, it may make sense to focus on AI Lead Scoring and AI-Generated Playbooks. If post-call follow-ups are where delays happen, tools like AI Meeting Assistant or post-call follow-up recommendations should be prioritised.
Start by aligning each tool with the specific challenges your team faces and gradually incorporate them into your workflow. This allows your team to adopt the tools organically and see real benefits without being overwhelmed by too many changes at once.
2. Train your team to use AI effectively
Even the most powerful AI tools won’t deliver value if your team doesn’t know how to use them correctly. Training is essential. Take the time to walk your sales reps through each tool’s functionality and benefits. Ensure they understand how the tools can improve their daily tasks, like preparing for meetings or automating email outreach, and how to interpret the insights the tools provide.
For example, when it comes to AI Predictive Deal Scoring, sales teams should be trained not only on how to use the tool but also how to act on the insights it generates. If a deal score suggests a low likelihood of closing, what adjustments should the rep make in their approach? Providing this context will empower your team to make smarter decisions using AI-driven data.
3. Focus on the right metrics
It’s important to define what success looks like before fully integrating AI tools into your sales process. Identify the metrics that matter most to your team, whether it’s improving lead conversion rates, shortening sales cycles, or increasing the number of meetings scheduled, and track the performance improvements as your team starts using the AI tools.
For instance, if AI Email Generation is used to craft more personalised outreach, you’ll want to measure how response rates change over time. Similarly, for tools like AI-Generated Reports, track how much time is saved in generating insights and whether the data is helping you make faster or better-informed decisions.
4. Encourage feedback and iteration
AI tools will continue to evolve, and so should your use of them. Encourage your sales team to provide regular feedback on how the tools are impacting their work. Are certain AI-generated recommendations consistently helpful? Are there areas where the tools could improve? Use this feedback to iterate and fine-tune your approach.
By fostering an environment of continuous learning and improvement, you ensure that your team remains adaptable and ready to make the most of new features as they’re released. For example, with HubSpot’s Breeze Prospecting Agent, feedback might reveal that certain data sources are more useful than others, allowing you to optimise how the tool pulls insights.
Unlock the full potential of HubSpot Sales Hub AI tools
Using HubSpot Sales Hub AI tools can give your team a substantial edge in the competitive sales environment.These tools are designed to tackle core challenges such as lead research, email personalisation, follow-ups, and forecasting, helping sales teams operate more efficiently and effectively.
To maximise their value, integrate AI tools thoughtfully into your existing workflows, ensuring they align with your team’s specific needs. Providing thorough training and tracking relevant metrics will enhance their impact, while staying informed about emerging AI trends will keep your sales strategy ahead of the curve.
By adopting AI, you transform it from a mere technology into a strategic asset that enhances productivity and drives growth. For personalised guidance on optimising your use of HubSpot Sales Hub, reach out to Huble’s team. Our experts are here to help you get the most out of these powerful AI capabilities and drive your sales success.
