Value-First AI Daily - Jan 22, 2026

[00:03] **Introduction** Chris Carolan: Good morning, HubSpot Nation. It is time to wake up customer platform with your number one unofficial HubSpot Updates morning show where we help you discover the platform value you already own. I'm Chris Carolan, joined by my co-hosts Casey Hawkins and George B. Thomas. We're here every weekday morning to make sure you're not sleeping on HubSpot's true capabilities. If you're joining live, drop a hello in the comments and let us know what you're building in HubSpot. Today, happy Thursday, January 22nd, 2026. How are we doing? Casey Hawkins: We! Happy Thursday, doing well. It was a short week, so it feels like it's flying by. George B. Thomas: Mm, it is flying by. Happy Friday's Eve. Yeah. Chris Carolan: Is that why it feels like it's flying by? George B. Thomas: Let's just say it's that. Let's say it's that. Let's not say it's the HubSpot updates and the AI world we live in and whatever else, uh, conspiracy theories. We'll say it's because it was a short week. Let's, but, uh, Chris, how the heck are you doing? Like you're at warp speed lately? Chris Carolan: Oh man. I am, I'm doing good. Uh, good and uh, that's because I get to travel at warp speed while also somehow, uh, doing more content. Was excited to get the HubSpot helpline, uh, back going yesterday. Yep. Thought we had a super, super valuable conversation, um, about HubSpot deal pipeline management. Yeah. Love it. That I'm realizing is probably at the core of a lot of uh, maybe some of the symptoms that we're trying to deal with on the daily. So super valuable conversation. Always good to do content, uh, with you two and, uh, Rob and Kyle. Um, Yep. So that was good to get that back on the schedule. And, uh, we'll highlight like all of this content that we do and Kyle said it himself on the show, like all of this feedback that's happening on LinkedIn, like creates change in HubSpot, the product. So, um, if you have thoughts or feelings or whatever, you know, please don't hesitate to to share. Um, and I also mentioned since I made that post about unboxing, like in that same vein, like we got to create awareness so people can even give feedback, like in the first place. Yeah. Got three unboxings on the schedule coming up. Uh, one for, well, the intent signals that we're going to talk about, uh, today, got that coming up. Uh, the scoring team, health and lead scores, uh, Casey and I will be unboxing with that team. And then, uh, Dan Curran from, uh, from Org Chart Hub, uh, now, um, bought by HubSpot last year, doing some amazing buying group stuff, uh, that we're going to be unboxing soon. So, excited about that. Nice. Oh man, some big ones today. Uh, let's just rip the Band-Aid off. Email workflows in private beta and you might be thinking, I don't, we've been doing No, not like this. workflows with emails for a long. What? That was like the original HubSpot. What's new here? Yeah. Not like this. Oh man, they're going to let us talk about it. See, uh, what is it? You can now create workflows based around the one-to-one email object. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? With this change, you can now trigger automation based directly on events such as emails being created. Then you can use workflow actions to create standard automatic internal processes for email management. George B. Thomas: This gets way, way more powerful for folks who, uh, quite early on jumped onto the, oh, emails is an object. Let me create custom properties because I have this process. And now all of a sudden, this is a layer of, oh, I had created these custom properties because I have this process. Ooh, can I automate this process? Hm. Yeah. Casey Hawkins: Um, I did see on LinkedIn that they maxed out the private beta like immediately, basically, like it was so quick. Yeah. Yeah. Chris Carolan: This, um, changes like this, uh, there's like if you're, first of all, email as an object, everybody should be interested in that. It's been available over in the index page for a while now. Um, but when you think about a lot of the ways that, um, you're forced to accomplish automation related to emails in HubSpot, based on which hubs you have and which licenses you have, uh, it probably just takes a little bit of creativity with this. Um, and as I'm reading this, uh, it makes sense that who gets it is, uh, well, no, that's professional and enterprise. Yep. Yep. George B. Thomas: Pro and Enterprise. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Um, it's less about automating your emails and it's more about automating the processes and things based on properties or when emails are created. So like think of like internal workflows. I'm sure there's some external things you can do, but think of like internal process majorly when you think about this beta or update. Yeah. Casey Hawkins: One thing that surprises me about this and I saw it on LinkedIn but didn't like dig into it more because I didn't want to mess up my product updates, uh, page. But it's focused on one-to-one sales email triggers, which surprises me. And this might be my own like biases, um, which is I think why Chris is laughing. Chris Carolan: No, I'm just saying like I, you're surprised that the update and any language around it is, is focused on sales. Like like every other update that could be applied to the whole journey and like George said's internal process management. Uh, I get why. It's just, uh, yeah. Uh, One of the examples they give in the knowledge base is like if a one-to-one email has been opened a certain number of times. So like, imagine you send a proposal and that proposal email has been opened, you know, three times, two times even, then you might start to be like, hey, what's going on with that? Oh man. Have we not learned our lesson about opening opens for emails? Like, do you really think that person is opening that email 40 times? Like, not 40. It just happens to be the thing when they they open their inbox. Like it's the email. Like, oh my gosh. Okay. I didn't stress Chris out this morning. Oh, Number two. George B. Thomas: Take a deep breath, brother. Chris Carolan: Remove specific values from multi-checkbox checkbox properties with the workflow edit record action. Nice. And it's live. What is it? We've added a new option to the edit record workflow action that lets you remove specific values from a multi-checkbox property without clearing the entire field. Hm. You can now selectively subtract values from a list of selected options directly in workflows. Huge. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? The edit record workflow action is one of the most powerful tools in workflows, giving you the ability to append, replace, or clear property values at scale. Until now, removing just a few values from a multi-checkbox property meant clearing everything and rebuilding the list from scratch, often with complex branching logic. That workaround was time-consuming, hard to maintain, and easy to get wrong. With selective value removal, workflows are simpler, cleaner, and more efficient. This makes it so much easier to keep your CRM data accurate without unnecessary complexity. Huge. Huge. George B. Thomas: Huge. Chris Carolan: Massive. I'd love to know the count of uh workflows that are about to be replaced by this one. Um, yeah. Very, very cool. Oh, number three, rule-based automated tracking for intent signals. What is it? Hey George, do you want to automatically track your highest value accounts for intent signals? It's now even easier. In addition to our existing workflow actions and auto-tracking features, simplified rule-based automated tracking now lets you manage your intent signals using simple toggles. Automatically start or stop tracking companies based on target account status, lifecycle stages, or segment membership. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Want to automatically Oh, sorry, got lost. Starting today, you can now do the following: Automatic tracking based on key CRM data, ensure your highest priority accounts are always being monitored. Automatically start tracking the moment a company is marked as a target account or moves into a specific lifecycle stage like lead or MQL. Track by territory or team, use segment membership to trigger tracking, making it easy to monitor accounts owned by specific reps or within certain regions. Sorry you got lost. There you are. Uh, Streamline your operations. In addition to using workflow actions for complex logic, use these toggles for set and forget tracking that keeps your intent data focused on active prospects and maintain database hygiene, automatically stop tracking companies when they become a customer or exit a priority segment, ensuring your credits are always used on the accounts that matter most. You just had to go and ruin it, HubSpot. Set and forget promises. Like, can we just stop with it? Oh my gosh. Otherwise, that's funny. talk about unified customer views and giving AI the guardrails it needs to understand the journey of a customer at all times throughout the whole journey, this kind of stuff is what allows for that. Um, now, like we were talking about yesterday, it, it does require like get really, um, specific with what your stages mean, how, how people move through them so that you can give AI the guardrails it needs because when, when it says, um, uh, making it easier to monitor accounts owned, like AI is doing the monitoring there in these situations with signal recognition. Uh, so this man, I'm really excited to to unbox this uh next week. Yeah. It's super powerful. Like there's so much data coming into HubSpot now that, uh, we just got to help people like start using that data. Number four, unmerge individual records in private beta. Hm. What is it? If you join the private beta when it opens back up, uh, you can now undo merges of individual CRM records. This restores records to their pre-merged state and provides an audit trail. This is only supported for the company's object type. Hm. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Previously merges were irreversible, leading to data integrity issues or loss. Now you can more easily correct merge mistakes and avoid manual workarounds. Um, Nice. Interesting that it's only at the company level. I do wonder. I mean I'm, I'm sure it's like a, this is it must be hard to unmerge like from a technical standpoint. George B. Thomas: I would think so. Casey Hawkins: Yeah. Chris Carolan: Yeah. And there's a lot less like the way that the emails are the unique key for, uh, for contact records make it super hard to harder at least to to do this. And I think a lot of this merge stuff, a lot of the data cleanliness stuff is happening at the company record often because, because HubSpot's been so good at preventing duplicates on the, on the contact record, uh, while not being basically not doing anything to prevent duplication on the company side. Uh, so good to see they're solving that problem. Um, and so I'd say for folks that are interested like I see this if you know that you can go back, it should be easier to to do the merge in the first place. Like, like it's it can be hard to just look at that first first window and it's like, all right, I think it's going to be this record. I think, but I can't go back, so I'm not going to do it. Like, we'll just get to it like tomorrow. So, um, that, that safety net is is going to be huge. Number five, uh, since yesterday, HubSpot link previews, uh, also known as unfurls, apparently is back. What is it? When you share a HubSpot record link in Slack, you'll get context rich, structured previews unfurls with no extra clicks required. What used to be just a static URL is now a snapshot of your CRM data conveniently visible within your Slack conversations. With this improvement, key information will be automatically displayed when links to supported HubSpot objects are shared in Slack, giving your teammate, giving your team immediate context and further unifying your CRM and communication platform. Casey Hawkins: Unifying buzzword. Hm. Why does this matter? More data, fewer silos. This improvement brings more of your CRM insights from HubSpot directly where your team communications happen in Slack. Get critical CRM insights without leaving your conversations. Accelerate decision-making by providing key details right where discussions happen. Reduce cognitive load by reducing the need to switch between multiple tools. Keep everyone aligned, uh, with inline context. Very nice. Join that beta. Um, There's just There's a screenshot that looks nice for like, yeah, this. Chris Carolan: This one? Casey Hawkins: Yeah, that one. I mean just for like, you know, this is what it would look like, which is nice. Chris Carolan: Um, yeah, and it's interesting like again folks, the dynamic difference here. Uh, further unifying your CRM and communication platform. And they're showing the data in Slack, not HubSpot. Right? So that's the world we're in. Um, and since we got a minute, uh, I'd love to get your thoughts on like this relates to updates. These two things I've heard over the last few days, um, in addition to Kyle's post, right? Like we want the feedback. It's valuable to get it. But a post from, um, uh, Kevin and hearing Liz on the podcast this week, George. Mm-hmm. Like Liz's comment was, man, I used to, we used to be able to just see the update and then go do it and it was easy to understand and it didn't take us to HubSpot here Hub Heroes episodes, uh, to to explain it. Mm-hmm. Um, and then Kevin's post was about how there's so much like there's a growing sense of, oh, that update's great, but it doesn't do this yet or it needs to do this too. And this dynamic of this is a complex platform now, folks and I'm just curious, uh, what was going through your brain when you when when that came, came from Liz and like, uh, like help people, uh, consume consume all these updates to this super complex HubSpot. George B. Thomas: Yeah, I mean, listen, when she said that, my brain went in a couple different directions. One, yes, it has gotten more complex, but that's why you should pay attention to the updates that matter to you. But there was also a another part of me that was like, I ain't saying on the show. Um, but I was like, I still read updates and go try them. Like so and what I mean by that is like, it's only as difficult as you allow your brain to think that it is difficult. It's only as difficult as the amount of time that you allow yourself to actually go play with the thing that you just learned about. And I'm not trying to be any sort of way when I'm saying that I'm like literally saying that out of the most like loving human that I can be right now, but sometimes I'm hearing this narrative like, oh, it's so hard. Now let me go watch Netflix. Chris Carolan: Yeah. And this is part of why I want this show to be the way that it is without like all of the tutorials and a ton of commentary and all these like the awareness part is paramount, right? And if while we're creating awareness, we're also talking about it, not doing this or that or being hard, the person that might have jumped in and tried it, now they think it's going to be hard and now they're not trying it, right? Yep. So, um, I'm really glad that we've been able to do this and that's why we are here every day just this kind of, you know, um, uh, this motion of just like not skipping any updates, you know, making sure everything at least makes it out there, uh, is is important. Um, so hopefully, uh, you know, that helps understand why, why we're here every day and the value that we've seen when people all over the ecosystem, you know, including inside of HubSpot themselves. They're like, oh, I didn't know that. Mm-hmm. Cool. Job done. Job step one. Yeah. Right? Casey Hawkins: I feel like there's so many updates that it can feel really overwhelming and that for me is where I get stuck in the like, okay, well I'll just go watch Netflix because like what am I supposed to do with all of these. Um, so I mean I like very, I very relate to that feeling. Um, but I think if you can find one update that is interesting to you, you don't have to try all of them. Um, just try one. Maybe that's one a week. That doesn't even have to be one a day. Maybe it's once a month. But just try. Oof. Yeah. But it's baby steps is what I'm saying. I'm just saying like if it feels overwhelming, try it in a way that feels less overwhelming. That's all. Yeah. Great. Or just give yourself permission to not feel like you have to take action like the moment you see an update. Mm-hmm. Right? Like that's what creates the overwhelm, I think. And if you're not aware of the updates in the first place, you can't take any action. Right? It's, it's, it's interesting Chris, when you said that and I know I fully understand I have a weird brain, but it's like, um, you have a winter coat but you don't always use your winter coat. But at least you know you got a winter coat in the closet for when you need the winter coat. Um, I got an update, but I don't always use that update. But at least I know I got the update if I need to use it. Like exactly. Chris Carolan: Man, that's so good. So then the true awareness comes in when you know what to do when it's 30 degrees outside. Yeah, exactly. Right? You're not paying to that, which is your business by the way. My salesperson isn't doing this. Right. Update. Yeah, let's go. We got the, that thing's been here. I've been wanting to use it, right? And instead of like the we force ourselves to be like if I can't take action right now, I don't even want to like see it, right? It's not productivity. It's not. We just find all these ways to not pay attention. And, um, so hopefully, uh, this helps. Uh, that's why the unboxings are coming. That's why the helpline was so exciting yesterday. It's just all these different ways, right? To learn about HubSpot. Uh, hopefully touches all of the, all of the the channels and the formats that that people like and want and need. Yep. Uh, so remember folks, you probably already own the solution you're looking for in HubSpot. 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, or the Profoundly HubSpot updates blog. Drop your biggest takeaway in the comments and let us know what capabilities you want to wake up to next. Until then, I'm Chris Carolan. Casey Hawkins: 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.