Last week, Marcel Digital’s Chief Strategy Officer, Kyle Brigham, and Chief Operating Officer, Tom Kelly, headed to Boston for HubSpot UNBOUND 2026, joining more than 13,000 attendees for three packed days of sessions, product demos, conversations, and plenty of AI.
And when we say plenty of AI, we mean it.
From new ways to use AI directly within HubSpot to conversations around answer engine optimization (AEO), automation, and the changing buyer journey - AI is becoming much more integrated into the tools and workflows marketers use every day.
Here are a few of the biggest things that stood out to our team.
1. HubSpot Is Making AI Much More Accessible
One of the biggest updates was the evolution of HubSpot's Breeze AI Assistant.
Breeze now works much more like the large language models people are already familiar with. Users can explain what they're trying to do in natural language and let Breeze help them get there, making it easier to take advantage of HubSpot's capabilities.
That could mean creating a landing page, building a campaign or list, setting up a workflow, or even creating an AI agent.
The update has the potential to make work faster while also making more of HubSpot's capabilities accessible to people who may not have expertise across every part of the platform.
We also saw more examples of AI agents being used to automate workflows and sequences. As these capabilities continue to develop, the barrier between having an idea for an automation and actually building it is getting smaller.
2. AEO Continues to Be a Major Conversation
AEO came up again and again throughout UNBOUND as marketers look at how tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are changing the way people research companies and make decisions.
One of the more interesting conversations focused on the role AI platforms can play earlier in the research process, even when the referral traffic they send to a website still looks relatively small. Analytics may only show the eventual visit, while much of the research leading up to it can happen within those platforms.
That makes visibility within AI-generated answers increasingly important, and many of the conversations throughout the week came back to the fundamentals.
In a session from Webflow Chief Evangelist Guy Yalif, those fundamentals were organized into four areas: content, technical, authority, and measurement.
For marketers, that means answering the questions people are actually asking, keeping content useful and current, making websites easy for AI platforms to access and understand, building authority across the web, and tracking how consistently your brand is mentioned and cited.
The session also reinforced that most organizations are still early in figuring all of this out. There is plenty left to learn about how AI platforms evaluate and surface brands, but strong content, technical foundations, authority, and measurement give marketers practical areas to focus on as AEO continues to evolve.
3. HubSpot Is Putting AEO to the Test
HubSpot gave attendees a closer look at how it's putting some of these AEO fundamentals into practice through its own experiments. Its AEO focus now includes brand mentions, accuracy, technical accessibility, and content that clearly connects its products to the problems buyers are trying to solve.
HubSpot also shared some of the experiments behind that strategy. Reworking FAQ and glossary pages to improve clarity increased citations by more than 20%, while pages connecting specific use cases and industries to real-world needs were cited much more consistently than general product pages. On the technical side, HubSpot has been testing ways to make important information easier for AI crawlers to retrieve, including reducing reliance on JavaScript and pre-rendering content.
Not every experiment worked. HubSpot's test of llms.txt, for example, showed no current value, while some other content experiments have yet to produce a measurable lift.
The mix of results offered a useful look at just how much experimentation is still happening as marketers figure out what actually influences visibility in AI search.
4. ChatGPT Ads Are Coming to HubSpot
Another update that stood out was HubSpot's planned integration with ChatGPT Ads.
As ChatGPT Ads continue to roll out, HubSpot is preparing to bring them directly into its platform alongside channels like Google and Meta. Marketers will be able to build audiences and provide context for their campaigns without leaving HubSpot.
There's still a lot to learn as ChatGPT Ads become more widely available, but seeing HubSpot build for the channel this early shows how quickly AI advertising is beginning to take shape.
We'll be keeping a close eye on how it develops and what it could eventually mean for paid media strategies.
5. We're All Still Learning What Works
That may have been one of the most refreshing parts of UNBOUND.
For all of the excitement around AI, there was also recognition that we're still relatively early.
AEO measurement is evolving. AI advertising is developing. New agents and automation capabilities need to be tested against real workflows. And not every new AI feature needs to become part of your strategy immediately.
We're seeing the conversation around AI become more practical, with greater focus on where it can actually make marketing better.
That's where the real opportunity is.
Bringing It Back to Marcel
After three days at UNBOUND, there was a lot to bring back to the Marcel team, from new HubSpot capabilities to fresh ideas around AEO, automation, and how AI is changing the way people discover and interact with brands.
One of the biggest takeaways was how quickly these conversations are becoming more practical. Marketers have more opportunities to use AI within the tools they already work with, along with a clearer picture of where it can make a meaningful difference.
There is still plenty to test, learn, and figure out along the way. We're looking forward to putting some of these ideas into practice, continuing to learn as the technology evolves, and bringing those insights into the work we're doing with our clients.
