Value-First AI Daily - Jan 29, 2026

[00:00] **Intro** Speaker: Intro Music

[00:24] **Welcome to Wake Up Customer Platform** Speaker 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. Uh, January 29th, 2026. Happy Thursday.

[01:13] **Are We on the Downslide?** Speaker Casey Hawkins: Happy Thursday. On the, on the downslide for the week.

[01:19] **Weekend Updates** Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Is that what this is? Okay. Speaker George B. Thomas: I don't know. I don't know if I Speaker Casey Hawkins: Do we have Speaker George B. Thomas: I don't know. I don't know if it's a downside, but the weekend is coming. The weekend is coming.

[01:30] **Weekend Plans** Speaker Casey Hawkins: Do we have any updates we've covered from the week that George, you are planning to spend your weekend working on, or are we still figuring that out? Speaker George B. Thomas: Uh, there's been some good um, updates. Um, I don't know if they will take my weekend. Just because I have some other projects that probably will take one day of my weekend, because one day is always rest. But, um, we'll see if maybe there's one there today. Maybe maybe I'll get shocked today. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah, let's see if we can solve that. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah. I see a lot of beta buttons. Speaker George B. Thomas: That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying I see Speaker Chris Carolan: Indeed, and some Speaker George B. Thomas: buttons Speaker Chris Carolan: And some lives too, I'll say. Uh, we'll start with this first one. Add line items to custom objects. Uh, if you haven't seen it yet, you can now use the data model builder to create associations between line items and custom objects with no custom code or workarounds required.

[02:46] **Line Items and Custom Objects** Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? With this update, it's easier to understand and configure the data that matters most to your business from a centralized location. Line items can be associated to custom objects in the app. The line item sidebar sidebar card provides an editor to add or edit line items for the custom object. From the API, new or existing line items can be associated to custom objects. This expands what is possible with, uh, possible to model with custom objects. Speaker George B. Thomas: Nice. Speaker Chris Carolan: Uh, we like the flexibility, just be careful if you're creating line item islands everywhere in your portal.

[03:36] **Segment Membership History** Speaker Chris Carolan: Number two, segment membership history. Speaker Casey Hawkins: This one's interesting. Speaker Chris Carolan: This is in public beta. What is it? You can now view a detailed membership history log for your segments. Membership history shows which records were added to or removed from a segment, when it happened, and what caused the change. For static segments, you can also add or remove records directly from this view. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Membership history helps you troubleshoot unexpected changes to your segments. You can quickly see why a specific record was added to or removed from a segment, identifying whether updates were triggered by automation, segment edits, or manual actions, so that you no longer need to guess how or why a segment changed. Speaker George B. Thomas: Hmm. Speaker George B. Thomas: Nice. Speaker Chris Carolan: I think we'll enjoy that. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah, I like that one.

[04:44] **Edit HTML Source Code in Rich Text Editor** Speaker Chris Carolan: Historical context we're getting everywhere in my portal now. Number three, edit HTML source code in rich text editors for quotes. Speaker George B. Thomas: Wow. Speaker Chris Carolan: What is it? Customers that desire rich web native content on their quotes can now leverage source code editing in the rich text editor, allowing them to view and edit the HTML created or write their own HTML. The rich text editor generates HTML for content created in rich text areas. It supports text formatting, lists, spacing, images, tables, and more through the editor UI. Previously, the generated HTML was not visible and could not be edited directly.

[05:38] **Why Custom HTML is Needed** Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Currently Commerce Hub quotes do not support custom HTML, limiting users who need advanced branding, layout control, or complex data handling. Users want to customize quote appearance, colors, styles, layouts, graphics, and embedded content. For example, case studies or images to align with their brand and present offerings professionally. Today, users rely on workarounds like embedding images to simulate customization. This approache these approaches do not render responsively across devices. undermines credibility and professionalism. Enabling [06:27] [inaudible] would allow template creators to build content that not only looks polished but also behaves like a modern web page.

[06:39] **Including Video** Speaker George B. Thomas: Okay, so I hate to be the guy. Maybe I don't. And I'll make it short because I know we have a limited amount of time with all these updates. I I wanted so bad in there in two places for them to reference video. And case studies and images and images was like said twice. And like, but but and and they said embed. Can I not do video? Can I do video? Can somebody please tell me because like one of the things that I historically loved about Panda Docs was the fact that you could have video inside of, like you could create an experience, a journey and I want to be able to use HubSpot quotes to create an experience, a journey and part of that would be, videos. Speaker Chris Carolan: Uh, yeah, I I'll take solace in the fact that they are trying to achieve, uh, behaves like a modern web page. Um, Speaker George B. Thomas: You know what's on my web pages, my modern web pages? The video. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah. Uh, we'll get there. Uh, some cool screenshots though. Uh, more customizable than ever before. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yes. I love it. I love it by the way. I'm not complaining. Speaker George B. Thomas: Well, maybe. Speaker George B. Thomas: Maybe it sounded like I was complaining. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yes, and. Yes, and. I'm not sure. Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: All right, number four.

[08:09] **Website Pages and Personalization** Speaker Chris Carolan: Personalization app supports website pages in private beta. What is it? The new personalization app now supports website pages, bringing everything you need to create, manage, and measure personalized web experiences into one central place. Using variants, you can quickly build audience specific versions of website pages without duplicating pages or manually adjusting individual modules. Whether you prefer for AI to do the heavy lifting or manually configure yourself, personalization helps you deliver the right website experience to the right audience faster.

[09:08] **Scaling Personalization** Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Website personalization has traditionally been difficult to scale. Creating multiple versions of pages often meant copying pages, managing inconsistencies, and losing visibility into what was actually performing. With variants for web pages, you can create and manage personalized page experiences in one place without duplication. Performance is tracked across all variants directly when you build them, making it easier to understand what is working and why.

[09:52] **Smart Content** Speaker George B. Thomas: I really need to jump into this um because my brain goes like we talked about this once on the show and my brain immediately went to smart content. And so like I sit here and I go, well, when this and when smart content? Or what's the difference of like if I use this, do does it matter if they're cookied? Like how does it know? Like if let's say, let's just pretend for a second, I happen to be like an accounting firm and I want to have like general accounting on a page, but I also want to have automotive accounting on a page. Now because I have website pages not just landing pages does it make more sense for me to do that here or does it make sense to actually have a list of people that I know are in said thing and do smart content? Like I I'm asking for a friend named George. I don't know. Like, Speaker Chris Carolan: Uh, indeed. Speaker George B. Thomas: I need to dive into this. Speaker Chris Carolan: We get that options. Uh, maybe something else that definitely unbox. Speaker George B. Thomas: You should unbox this, Chris. Have you unboxed, yes, you should unbox this. I would watch that. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yep. Uh. Speaker Casey Hawkins: I would watch that. Speaker George B. Thomas: Oh. Who is even in charge of this one? Uh is that CMS team? Content Hub team? Speaker George B. Thomas: I would imagine it would be content. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: Marketing hub and content hub Pro and enterprise. So, um, if you're out there watching, love to do an unboxing. Speaker George B. Thomas: Let's do it, please. Speaker Chris Carolan: Uh, or if you're watching and you know who's responsible for this, uh, shoot me a message. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: Sales documents multi-brand support. Speaker George B. Thomas: Uh-oh. Speaker Chris Carolan: This is live. With a big old image. Uh, we love our sales documents.pdfs. That's for sure. Uh, missing description, add it now. Man, so much going on here. Speaker George B. Thomas: Oh, documents not my brain went to invoices. Sorry. No, this is the documents tool. Okay. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: Don't mind me. Uh, George wants to know. Extend multi-brand support to sales documents so that each document can be assigned a specific brand and the correct brand logo and colors are displayed in the document viewer. Ensuring buyers always see the intended brand identity. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Smart. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Multi-brand organizations need all sales collateral and buyer interactions to consistently reflect the right brand without manual work. So buyers have a coherent experience and sellers avoid mistakes. This change lets users assign and change brands for doc for sales documents, enabling brand-based filtering and ensures branded visuals are always consistent in every buyer interaction. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Smart. Speaker George B. Thomas: I I love this. Speaker Chris Carolan: Does it work? Customers must have the brands add-on. Uh, and all sales hub customers who have purchased the brands add-on. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: Which I think is marketing hub specific. Speaker Chris Carolan: Right? Okay. Speaker George B. Thomas: Well, I don't think so. I think brands is a standalone. I think it's a standalone. Yeah. I think you can have a sales hub and have brands. Uh, I do believe is a possibility. I I could be wrong but I think it's a possibility now. Speaker Chris Carolan: Okay. Cool. Yeah, it says on products here, sales hub and service hub. Um, I'm done. Just tired. Okay. Speaker Chris Carolan: Interesting. Um, yeah. Speaker George B. Thomas: And maybe maybe what you were looking at was for the documents tool. I don't know if they paid attention to documents plus brands for what you were just looking at. Speaker Chris Carolan: Right. Yeah. That's a good point. Um but these two together personalization app, sales documents, like it's getting easier and easier to make sure you're putting a consistent uh experience out there.

[13:04] **Seamlessly Restore CRM Data** Speaker Chris Carolan: Seamlessly restore CRM data. Speaker George B. Thomas: Hmm. Speaker Chris Carolan: In public beta. What is it? Unified data backup and restore automatically captures your CRM data every day for the last 14 days. So you can roll back to any point in time without creating manual backups. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Wow. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? Data issues often surface days after they occur when manual exports are already outdated. This eliminates the need for proactive data exports and reduces the time to fix data problems. You can quickly identify what changed in your CRM and selectively restore only the data segments that need fixing without losing work your team completed after the issue occurred. Speaker George B. Thomas: Oh. Speaker George B. Thomas: That's pretty powerful. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah, it is. I wonder how many people don't know about this yet and that need to know about it. Like this feels like something that every HubSpot user should know about. And instead of being in like a product updates uh panel should be like one of those them there HubSpot emails that we get. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah. Uh it is available at enterprise level. Um, this might be one of those things where they're doing the new product update card like inside of the admin area. Um, I won't be surprised if this was one of those relevant updates to show up there. Um, very cool.

[14:54] **Retroactive SLAs** Speaker Chris Carolan: Retroactive SLAs. What is it? Currently, any new changes made to SLAs in the Help Desk are applied to new tickets only. This new feature gives admins the option to apply SLA changes to existing tickets. Teams can retroactively align in-flight tickets with their latest SLA configurations without manual intervention. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Customers expect the ability to configure SLA goals that apply to their current tickets, not just new ones. This allows them to establish new goals and immediately reflect them in active workflows, ensuring reporting accuracy and consistent expectations for agents and managers alike. Speaker George B. Thomas: Hmm. Speaker George B. Thomas: Oh, you thought you had four days to get this done? It's two days now. Since you're AI, like you can work way faster. All right, we're changing that SLA. Speaker George B. Thomas: Hmm. Speaker Chris Carolan: We like flexibility in our HubSpot. Uh next on the list today. Breeze Assistant mobile app conversation starters to help you get going faster with custom assistance. What is it? We've added conversation starters to custom assistance on the Breeze Assistant mobile app, making it easier than ever to kick off a chat, especially when you're not sure what to ask or where to begin. Now when you open a custom assistant, you'll see a set of helpful prompts tailored to that assistant's purpose. These are designed to give you hints on what the assistant can do and help you jump right into a productive conversation. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? Conversation starters make custom assistance more approachable, helpful, and fast, especially for mobile users. New team members can explore what an assistant can help with without needing to guess. Busy users can get help on the go with one tap, no typing required. Admins can guide users towards high-impact use cases ensuring assistants are used the way they were designed. It's a small improvement that makes a big difference in driving adoption, clarity, and speed. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yes. Yes, it is. I love this I love this feature. I've already used it for a couple of the custom assistants we've created for folks.

[17:23] **Policy Example** Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah, I love these examples too. What are our policies around time off requests? How do I escalate a question to the right person? I need help finding my W2. Man. Uh, I love this portal. We brought it all into HubSpot. Uh, number nine today, build custom reports on form submissions. What is it? We are excited to announce the public beta for supporting form submissions as a data source in the custom report builder and while I said public beta out loud, there is a live icon uh down here. So, it's available. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Yeah. This matters because you can now build a variety of reports based on form submissions to understand how your forms are performing, slice and dice form submission data, and much more. I think when this first came out, I mentioned, um, I have a client that has kind of a crazy workaround where they export form submissions through a workflow into a Google Sheet and then they report in out of the Google Sheet because this hasn't been possible. Um, so I was very excited when this first got announced because it just is like such a crazy a crazy missing piece. Speaker George B. Thomas: It moved it removed complexity. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Yes. Speaker George B. Thomas: Nice. Speaker George B. Thomas: It did. Uh, and by the way, if you're wondering what you might report on, uh, all of the examples can be found in this product update card. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah. Very cool. Uh, marketing email API migration to folder IDV2. Everybody's favorite folder. What is it? HubSpot is updating the marketing email API endpoints to include both the existing folder ID and the new folder IDV2 fields in the JSON response during the migration period to allow you to map the folder ID to folder IDV2. Folder ID is the field that represents the folder containing marketing emails in HubSpot. Beginning January 28, 2026, Folder ID property will stop working. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yesterday. Speaker Chris Carolan: Use only folder IDV2 property in your API requests after this date. Full details are available in this change log with a link. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? To focus our future development efforts on the improved V3 marketing email API which offers a richer and more comprehensive experience, we're sunsetting folder ID object for the email API. Speaker George B. Thomas: There's a lot of Vs in this update. Speaker Chris Carolan: Yeah. Speaker Casey Hawkins: I don't know if that's quite why that matters. It's more like why we did it. Yeah, it matters because your issue will be broke as of yesterday. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Yeah. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Speaker George B. Thomas: Whoopsie. Speaker Chris Carolan: Uh, and the people that have a show every day, uh, have not seen it prior to today. Okay. Uh, got two more.

[20:57] **Associate Payments with Tickets** Speaker Chris Carolan: Associate payments with tickets. What? What? I know those words. What is it? Payments can now be directly associated with tickets. You can add the payments card to a ticket view and manually associate payments with tickets. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? When a payment is associated with a ticket, you can take payment actions like refunding or reissuing receipts directly from the ticket without leaving it. Interesting, that's not where my head went immediately. Speaker Chris Carolan: Where did your head go immediately? Speaker Casey Hawkins: I I'm you're I'm embarrassed to say. I was like, a payment gets made and then there's maybe a ticket for like onboarding or something like that in but now there's projects so maybe that's different but that's where my head immediately went. Speaker George B. Thomas: See, my my brain did not immediately go there my but my brain did go immediately a direction where, wow, we're finally putting our money where our mouth is, uh that support can actually be a revenue driver, uh cross-sales, up-sales. And so, interesting. Speaker Chris Carolan: I I like the optimism. Um but yeah, their example like refunding or reissuing receipts is often what that team is having to do like, oh, I didn't get my receipt. Oh there was a there was a payment problem. Um but yeah, all of those things I think will will be seen. Uh again, that's like one of the best places to ensure customer loyalty and customer experience is when doing help desk style stuff. And that definitely includes uh money changing hands now in HubSpot. So. Speaker George B. Thomas: Yeah. Speaker Chris Carolan: Uh last on the list today, predicted email engagement in segments. What is it? See how a segment of contacts is predicted to perform in an email based on the historical engagement of the contacts. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Wow. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? Email performance depends on your audience, not just content. Surprise. Today, you might rely on guesswork or manually building out reports of past results to predict segment performance. Now you can predict segment level email performance before sending so that you focus your efforts on high potential segments. Speaker Casey Hawkins: Wow. Speaker Chris Carolan: Predicted email engagement. My, on this uh screenshot, here's the question, it's end of the month, we need some more leads. You put it together. It says predicted email engagement low. Uh, how many of you are not sending that email. Speaker Casey Hawkins: I was also thinking like, uh you may rely on guesswork or manually building out reports of past um results to predict segment performance. I've never seen someone do that. Speaker Chris Carolan: I wish. I almost interrupted you. I'm like, like, wait. Oh man. Seriously, folks, all the visibility in the world, uh, to to help you make some better decisions uh when trying to engage the humans uh outside of the business. Speaker George B. Thomas: Nice. Speaker Chris Carolan: 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 and 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. Speaker Casey Hawkins: I'm Casey Hawkins. Speaker George B. Thomas: And I'm George B. Thomas. Speaker Chris Carolan: And this has been wake up customer platform and now go build something amazing. Have a great day everybody.

[24:20] **Outro Music** Speaker: Outro Music