Value-First AI Daily - Jan 21, 2026

[00:01] **Introduction** Chris Carolan: Good morning Hubspot nation. It is time to wake up customer platform with your number one unofficial Hubspot updates Morning Show. Chris Carolan: Where we help you discover the platform value you already own. Chris Carolan: I'm Chris Carolan joined by my co-host, Casey Hawkins and George B. Thomas. Chris Carolan: We're here every weekday morning to make sure you're not sleeping on Hubspot's new capabilities. Chris Carolan: If you're joining live, drop a hello in the comments and let us know what you're building in Hubspot today. Chris Carolan: Happy Wednesday, January 21st. What are we doing? Casey Hawkins: Happy Wednesday. We all meet uh, we all were orange. George B. Thomas: We did it. Casey Hawkins: Which is an accomplishment. George B. Thomas: We're we're all winning. We're winning today. Chris Carolan: We got hard. I'm so proud of us. Chris Carolan: Chris, how are you doing? Chris Carolan: I'm doing good. Uh, really excited today to get back together uh, with our friends, uh, Rob Jones and Kyle Jepson. Nico Lafakis: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Uh, um, we are uh, the Hubspot Helpline is back. George B. Thomas: It's back. Chris Carolan: and um, new day Nico Lafakis: [inaudible] is back, guess who's back. Chris Carolan: Um, I guess we'll have to update our our theme song, but we might hear it one more song today, one more time today. Chris Carolan: Um, but yeah, join us LinkedIn Live in little over a couple hours uh, for the Hubspot Helpline and get some help with Hubspot. George B. Thomas: Mhm. Chris Carolan: Uh, in the meantime, let's talk about some updates.

[02:53] **Hubspot Calling in the Chrome Extension** Chris Carolan: Uh, you can use this Chrome extension that now supports calling. Chris Carolan: Uh, if you want to call into the show, uh, this is a public beta. Chris Carolan: What is it? Hubspot calling users can now manage their calling connection through the Hubspot Chrome extension. Chris Carolan: This removes the need to keep a separate browser window open. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Previously users needed to keep a separate calling window open to receive inbound calls or make outbound calls using the dial. Casey Hawkins: This update removes the friction by maintaining the call connection seamlessly in the background through the Chrome extension. George B. Thomas: You're definitely going to want to go to this update. There is an install or update your Chrome extension. They do have a link to the Chrome web store. George B. Thomas: Um, but this is this is very interesting. There's a little bit of configuring that needs to happen. George B. Thomas: Uh, who gets it? Hubspot calling is available for first party calling users on Hubspot Sales Hub Starter, Professional and Enterprise or Service Hub Starter, Professional and Enterprise. George B. Thomas: Support for third party calling apps is coming soon, which is nice. But definitely check out the how does it work and um, I I will I hope you're updating your Chrome extension. George B. Thomas: I hope you're not installing your Chrome extension. Anyway, just just me, just me. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Um, and yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna click on that right now, but uh, there's some other cool stuff going on there. Chris Carolan: And then in the screenshot, we see enable, um, uh, Breeze as well. Chris Carolan: So, uh, that extension getting more and more valuable. And again, we're trying to get down the number of windows, the number of screens, the number of clicks people are having to do to get their work done. So good to see that. George B. Thomas: Yep, yep.

[04:52] **Sales Power Dialer Update** Chris Carolan: Um, number two, Sales Power Dialer George B. Thomas: It's a phone kind of day. Chris Carolan: Now supports Deals companies and leads in public beta. Casey Hawkins: They knew it's the calls. George B. Thomas: I know right. Casey Hawkins: Sorry. Chris Carolan: Sales Power Dialer now supports Deals companies and leads in public beta. Chris Carolan: Uh, and please note, tasks are coming soon. George B. Thomas: Nice. George B. Thomas: Why does it matter? Because you want to dial faster. That's I don't There's not even a why does it matter section but like. George B. Thomas: Yeah. You should know cause you want to make more calls. George B. Thomas: Said everybody always? I don't know. Casey Hawkins: I've I've never really used Hubspot calling. Um, so all of the calling updates are always interesting to me but also like I I just always feel like I'm missing this like context piece as a as a human who uses Hubspot in a different way. George B. Thomas: I will tell you it is nice to have like a Hubspot phone number versus needing to have your personal phone number or cell phone number like on your website and stuff like that. George B. Thomas: And the calling features are dope. Like I do love some of the things that you can do. Now do I use the speed dialer or power dialer as they call it? George B. Thomas: I don't speak that language. Chris Carolan: No. George B. Thomas: Yeah, I might use the Chrome extension to be honest with you just because, but, um, yeah, you're not missing a ton, but it is kind of nice to have some of those things at your fingertips if needed. Chris Carolan: Yeah. And I I think all we're really talking about here is just from these other index pages of Deals, companies and leads. Chris Carolan: Uh, you can get to Power Dialer functionality from there instead of only from the context page. Chris Carolan: Um, which in my opinion, makes sense to do it from the contacts page. if we're trying to dial other humans, but you know, whatever works for your process. George B. Thomas: If we were an infomercial, it'd sound a little bit something like this. But wait, there's more. Now you can even call people from your leads object. Anyway, that's what it that's what it would sound like. Chris Carolan: Uh, get it today on Sales Hub Enterprise. George B. Thomas: Four easy payments of 9.99. Chris Carolan: Nope, that's not the price. yeah, we're not gonna talk about pricing on the show. Chris Carolan: Oh, number three today, assignment details.

[08:01] **AI Powered Routing Explanations** Chris Carolan: What is it? AI powered routing explanations help you understand exactly why a conversation or ticket was assigned to a specific team member. Chris Carolan: When you open the routing details, you'll see a clear explanation of which routing rule fired, who was eligible at that moment, and how Hubspot made the final assignment presented in simple, human friendly language. Chris Carolan: It turns routing from a black box into something transparent and easy to troubleshoot. George B. Thomas: Casey, can you give me a second before you read the why does it matter? Casey Hawkins: I know what it's gonna be. I know what it's gonna be. George B. Thomas: Hey, well, we'll see cause I'm kind of weird. George B. Thomas: Hey Hubspot, can we do that to round Robin meetings so that we understand like why in the world it looks like somebody got skipped, uh, when they didn't get skipped. George B. Thomas: It's because they had like a hidden block for a dentist appointment or so just can we get? Okay. George B. Thomas: Why does it matter Casey? Casey Hawkins: I thought you were gonna get I was wrong. I I thought the human friendly language, I thought you were gonna like that. George B. Thomas: Nah. Casey Hawkins: There's other black boxes in Hubspot is what I'm saying. Casey Hawkins: Yes. Why does this matter? When assignments don't land where you expect, it slows teams down and increases escalations. Casey Hawkins: Support managers often need to know which routing rule matched. Was the agent available? Did the capacity or skills filtering change the outcome? Why was one agent chosen over another? Casey Hawkins: Instead of digging through settings or recreating scenarios, you now get an immediate and accurate explanation of what happened. Casey Hawkins: This makes it easier to diagnose misrouted tickets and conversations, train new team members on how routing decisions are made, adjust routing rules with confidence and understand real routing behavior during busy periods. George B. Thomas: You know it's funny because at some point it's going to be like, why did you route to this one and then also you'll get. George B. Thomas: [inaudible] they say please. Like that's you know, that's that's what you're gonna get one of these days. George B. Thomas: They're nice to me. like yep, anyway. So I route things to them. George B. Thomas: Yeah, anyway. Chris Carolan: Oh, man. Uh, understanding historical context always good. Chris Carolan: Um, yeah, I anticipate if we get visibility over stuff like that, hopefully other areas that include routing, we will get it there too. Chris Carolan: Number four today, property based quote approvals for standard approvals. George B. Thomas: Oh, that's the one I don't have in mind. Okay.

[11:13] **Expanding Capabilities of Standard Approvals** Chris Carolan: What is it? We're expanding the capabilities of standard approvals by giving admins more flexibility in how they set up approval rules. Chris Carolan: Instead of requiring every quote to go through approval, admins can now use quote properties or properties from associated objects like line items and deals to configure a targeted quote approval workflow. Chris Carolan: This means they'll only be prompted to review quotes that meet the specific rule they've set. Chris Carolan: A few examples of what can be supported here: quotes requiring approval above a 30% discount, quotes requiring approval where esign is enabled, and quotes requiring approval where a specific line item is over a 20% discount. Casey Hawkins: Why do Why does it matter? Today, standard approvals require admins to review every quote, which becomes increasingly inefficient as volume grows. Casey Hawkins: By allowing admins to define a criteria for which quotes to review, they can focus quotes that need attention. Casey Hawkins: This reduces unnecessary workload and creates a more scalable streamlined approval process. George B. Thomas: Very nice. Chris Carolan: This is a big yeah, update. George B. Thomas: Yes, very nice. Chris Carolan: Comes with Commerce Hub Professional and Enterprise. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Number five, business days support workflow delays. George B. Thomas: Uh oh.

[12:48] **Business Days Support Workflow Delays** Chris Carolan: Private beta. Chris Carolan: What is it? We've updated the delay action in workflows to include an option to exclude weekends. Chris Carolan: When this option is enabled, delays count only Monday through Friday. For example, if a contact enters a one day delay on a Friday with weekends excluded, the next action will run on the following Monday. George B. Thomas: Oh my god. Becky. No. Um, sorry, I'll I'll talk after, uh, Casey goes. Oh my god. Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? This update makes workflow timing more aligned with normal business operations. With it you can stop sending emails on weekends when your team won't be available to respond, ensure follow ups happen on work dates improving conversation and engagement rates, avoiding confusing timing logic where calendar days push actions into unexpected gaps like weekend dates. Casey Hawkins: This update will help your teament maintain professional, predictable communication cadences and reduce manual workarounds people previously used to approximate business day timing. George B. Thomas: Oh my God. So literally yesterday I was in workflows and I was trying, so the scenario is, um, we want to give them a notice one day before their appointment. George B. Thomas: And so that part's easy. Like okay, one day before. George B. Thomas: But there was the scenario of like, however, like if it's Saturday or Sunday, we just want it to go out Monday and I'm like, oh, okay, or maybe it was if it's Saturday and Sunday, any anyway, this fixes the entire mental spaghetti like this is good. George B. Thomas: This is actually good, like really good. Like this will save people sleep. Chris Carolan: Anyway. and since this is day one of seeing this beta, uh, product managers maybe you could open this beta up uh, to new customers at this time. Chris Carolan: can't click the button just yet. George B. Thomas: Please. Casey Hawkins: Can you bring my screen up? Do we have time? Uh-oh. Chris Carolan: Uh, sure. Casey Hawkins: So this is how I've been solving for this, um, historically. Casey Hawkins: So I have a three day delay and then immediately after the three day delay, um, I have a second delay action to delay until the day of the week and then I choose Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Casey Hawkins: Sometimes depending on the workflow, maybe I'll just choose Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday if I don't want it to go out Monday or Friday also. Casey Hawkins: Um, and then a lot of times I still add custom times to make sure that it's not going out at like midnight or something. Um, one thing I've always found kind of confusing is there was a setting at some point. George B. Thomas: It's gone. Casey Hawkins: Oh, it's gone. Okay. George B. Thomas: It's gone. I looked for it. Like only run workflow or like weekdays that button. George B. Thomas: Yeah, I looked for it yesterday and was like, no, there no bit. I'm the old guy in Hubspot. I know that there was a jar of peanut butter right on this shelf right here. George B. Thomas: And uh, the peanut butter was gone. That I was like, where's the button? Like I was. Casey Hawkins: That's why. George B. Thomas: Yeah. I don't know. But But what's always been confusing about that to me is like, okay, if I set this delay to three days and this workflow is only set up to go out Monday, Tuesday, weekdays, I don't need to name them. Casey Hawkins: Yeah. Um, and will that go out at like midnight on Monday? because that's when the weekday starts technically. George B. Thomas: Right. George B. Thomas: Right. Yeah, it's always confusing. Casey Hawkins: So that's why I've always done this because I just like, I just don't understand it, so I just would rather do this where I do understand it. George B. Thomas: Yeah, so I'm excited about the new beta once it gets unlocked because like it just fixes a real, a real world problem for a lot of folks who don't do things on the weekend but maybe their customers do. Anyway. Casey Hawkins: The one thing I'm just wanting to be aware of is still like will this go out at midnight? George B. Thomas: Right. So just make sure you're like. George B. Thomas: Well, you do still have the you do still have in workflow settings the um, only send during these times. Casey Hawkins: Okay. So you can still fix that where it's like only send from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. but there isn't like the old school like and only send on weekdays. Like that, yeah. At least that I could find. George B. Thomas: Somebody's gonna call in. Casey Hawkins: I like to use contact time zone also, but that's just me. George B. Thomas: Oh. Casey Hawkins: Those are all my. George B. Thomas: Nice. Very nice. Chris Carolan: Yeah. And seeing uh, words like business days and starting to think about how the user area setting up availability times, like starting to connect that to when the business is operating, um, as opposed to just calling it weekends or weekdays. Chris Carolan: I I like where they're going here. Um, so that is good stuff. Chris Carolan: Um, number six today, subtasks. George B. Thomas: Uh-oh.

[18:07] **Subtasks Beta** Chris Carolan: In private beta. Chris Carolan: What is it? Subtasks allow you to break down tasks into smaller, more manageable steps within Hubspot. George B. Thomas: Well, yes, they do. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Complex tasks often involve multiple steps to complete. Previously you had to create separate tasks for each step, which didn't align with how you actually approach your work. Casey Hawkins: Subtasks let you organize your work in Hubspot exactly as you think about it, making it easier to track progress on multistep tasks, delegate specific task specific steps to team members and ensure all parts of complex tasks are completed. George B. Thomas: Now my question, is this only in projects or is this across the board? George B. Thomas: I want to request this beta yesterday, uh, not because I'm doing anything with it, but because I want to know. I'm literally thinking of this like workflow that we built that we have this like 1A, 1B and like there's this kind of like waterfall effect of like you don't do two until one's done. George B. Thomas: But if one could actually have subtasks and it's not in projects but just in general, I'll shut up. Anyway, this could be very interesting moving forward in Hubspot. Chris Carolan: Well let's let's see how it works, George. uh, how does it work? Chris Carolan: Creating subtasks uh, whenever this beta opens, uh, cause it's another one we can't can't click on yet. George B. Thomas: Do they just automatically enter us maybe? Chris Carolan: No, no accepting. Yeah. Chris Carolan: This would this would say in it, um, or pending or yeah. Uh, so creating subtasks, you can add subtasks when creating or editing a task in several locations. Chris Carolan: The Gantt view in projects, deals, and services. Chris Carolan: If this is the first time you're hearing the words Gantt view inside of Hubspot, please check out yesterday's admin hug. Chris Carolan: That was all about flexible CRM views. Uh, I'll repeat uh, I think I said it at the end of last year on the Hubspot Helpline uh, that I think this was the base update of 2025. Chris Carolan: Uh, check out that admin hug. Team's doing great things and they showed it all yesterday. Um, outside the Gantt view when you're on a project record and preview, uh, you can create subtasks. Chris Carolan: In the customer success workspace, uh, so also news to some tasks not just for the sales team anymore. Chris Carolan: Um, but be careful because they see the tasks. Anyways, to create a task, navigate to Gantt view, create task, look for the subtasks section in the task form. Chris Carolan: Alternatively in Gantt view, hover next to an existing task and click create task sub option. Chris Carolan: Man, they're getting fancy with this UI. I love it. Chris Carolan: In the project preview, click create tasks. Click create task in the tasks card. Add subtasks in the form.

Chris Carolan: Within the project record, go to the task card. By the way, if you haven't seen this task card yet, so good. Chris Carolan: Uh, click create task or edit an existing task, add subtasks in the form in the customer success workspace. Chris Carolan: Yes, Hubspot has a customer success workspace. Uh, navigate to the Gantt view inside of the workspace. Chris Carolan: Come on folks, uh, follow the steps above to create subtasks. Chris Carolan: About subtasks, subtasks have the same properties and permissions as regular tasks. Chris Carolan: You can create up to 30 subtasks per parent task. Be careful. Chris Carolan: Be careful folks. uh, just saying subtasks are not yet available when creating tasks from the top highlight card of project preview or other CRM record pages. Chris Carolan: Uh, looks like everybody uh, and starter and above uh, will get this when it when it opens. George B. Thomas: I like this who gets it layout better by the way. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Chris Carolan: It is it is much nicer. and another tidbit from yesterday's hug, um, is uh, tasks becoming an object. George B. Thomas: Oh God, yes. Chris Carolan: At some point in 2026. uh, George B. Thomas: Please say that's so. Chris Carolan: Yeah, uh, on the roadmap, George. We we heard it yesterday. George B. Thomas: You mean custom task properties? Oh my gosh. Chris Carolan: Exactly. They they didn't leave anything out as far as like getting its own settings page, own view, like. George B. Thomas: I might need a minute. George B. Thomas: Oh oh my God. I might need. We gotta make sure our graduation music is ready. George B. Thomas: Ah, yeah. For that day. George B. Thomas: For that day, we'll definitely play the graduation March. My I'm searching for it right after this show is over. Chris Carolan: They did not share a timeline, so we probably have some time to get that ready. um, Chris Carolan: Last on the list today, form submissions on the company record. What is it? Company records now display form submissions from all associated contacts on the activity timeline. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? When evaluating a company's engagement, you need visibility into all the touch points across the organization. Casey Hawkins: Instead of checking individual contact records, you can now view all form submissions from associated contacts in one place, saving time and giving you a complete picture of company level interests. George B. Thomas: I mean, I'm excited about this, but doesn't this feel like something that should have already been here like three years ago? Casey Hawkins: Yeah. I mentioned it when Kyle got back from his paternity leave, um, I mentioned this as like one of the big, bigger updates from when he was gone. Casey Hawkins: But that exact I mean, but exactly like you said, George, it's the kind of update that like is really good, but like it is kind of like, oh, why wasn't Why didn't this already exist? George B. Thomas: I mean, not to be that guy. I'm sorry. Casey Hawkins: That's what I love you. George B. Thomas: I love you. Yes, it is, it is. Chris Carolan: And but you won't see it unless your contacts are actually associated to that company record. Chris Carolan: So again, make sure your stuff is associated. Chris Carolan: Yeah. George B. Thomas: Yeah. And if you're not, no hang on. George B. Thomas: Hang on. Hang with that. George B. Thomas: With that Chris. And if you're not using associations in your rows of your views, by the way, like that's a whole game changer too because now you can literally see like associations in the index view rows, which is like I I just have met a lot of people lately that haven't been doing that. So I've been talking about it and they're like, oh my God, this is a game changer. George B. Thomas: I'm like, yeah, it's a direct link. Like it's a hot link to the thing that you need to get to next. They're like, this is amazing. Anyway. George B. Thomas: Sorry. Go ahead and Chris. Chris Carolan: And uh, and we need like a new segment like sidebar for marketing specifically. Chris Carolan: Like marketing, if you're having trouble uh, getting your sales team to um, you know, associate things and make sure that's right. Chris Carolan: Uh, you could probably use something like this to be like, hey, wouldn't it be nice if you could see all the form submissions when you're on this company record? Chris Carolan: Well, to do that, you just have to all you have to do is associate the contacts. Chris Carolan: Cool. All right. More adoption. Let's go. Chris Carolan: Remember folks, you probably already own the solution you're looking for in Hubspot. Chris Carolan: Sometimes you just need to wake up to it. Join us tomorrow morning live at 7:30 a.m. Central or catch us anytime on Spotify, Apple Music and the Profoundly Hubspot Updates blog. Chris Carolan: Drop your biggest takeaway in the comments and let us know what capabilities you want to wake up to next. Chris Carolan: Till then, I'm Chris Carolan. George B. Thomas: Oh, no, no, no, no. George B. Thomas: I'm I'm Casey Hawkins. George B. Thomas: And I'm George V. Thomas. Chris Carolan: And this has been wake up customer platform. Now go build something amazing. Have a great day everybody.