Publication Date: May 13, 2024

Industry: Marketing industry

Source: Harvard Business School

The technologies driving artificial intelligence (AI) had progressed significantly since HubSpots acquisition of Motion AI in 2017. Generative AI was the newest major development. Software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies such as HubSpot were analyzing how generative AI could impact marketing and sales processes in two ways: hyperpersonalized and contextual content generation to feed the top of their sales funnels and intelligent chatbots for business development and sales prospect customer service further down in their sales funnels. Could and should AI be a substitute for the people involved in HubSpots marketing and sales processes? Or, was it better utilized as a complementary tool, a co-pilot or digital assistant to marketers, salespeople, and chat reps? How might HubSpot benefit from and/or suffer from having AI be the face of its brand to its customers? How might the relationships the company formed with its customers change if customers interacted with AI-generated content and AI-fueled chatbots as opposed to being inspired by and interacting with humans? Would generative AI prove to be a sustainable competitive advantage for HubSpot and would it show a positive return-on-investment, or not?