Value-First AI Daily - Feb 5, 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-host 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, February 5th, 2026. [00:50] **Happy Thursday** Casey Hawkins: Happy Thursday. George B. Thomas: Happy Thursday. Chris Carolan: Sounds like we're ready for some some updates. Casey Hawkins: We're thriving. My um stream isn't working, so hopefully. Chris Carolan: Oh. Casey Hawkins: Everyone else. Chris Carolan: It looks it looks like mine is. I got two check marks. Um but I'm just I'm Chris. I I kept it real short until right now. I'm not keeping it short anymore. I kept it real short because when I opened my screen, I saw um let's just say what I'd call a massive butt ton of join beta buttons. Uh so I'm getting my fingers ready for the old whiz banger there. So, indeed. Chris Carolan: Uh let's let's dive in. Um updated company object sync between HubSpot and Salesforce, uh our favorite sync. [01:54] **Updated Company Object Sync** Chris Carolan: Mhm. What is it? Sync company objects between HubSpot and Salesforce with greater accuracy. This new update includes deduplication features and new support for merging company objects. Casey Hawkins: Why does this matter? Maintain accuracy and reliable CRM records between HubSpot and Salesforce. This update strengthens data integrity and streamlines operations for businesses managing customer relationships across both platforms. Um, very excited to see this. Chris Carolan: For those of you not watching and couldn't hear the excitement in Casey's uh voice as she read through that. Her her face was uh it's gold. George B. Thomas: Yeah. Chris Carolan: It's a big, this is a big one. Casey Hawkins: So I read the update and I was like, "Updated company sync." And even when you like started it, I was like, "You've always been able to sync companies." Like that merging company object though. That's it. [03:12] **Unmerging Stuff** George B. Thomas: Mm. Chris Carolan: Yeah. I love watching the dominoes here because they probably couldn't get to this until they made it easy to unmerge stuff, right? Which just recently happened. Uh, so very cool to see them working on, you know, probably one of the first features uh, of of HubSpot uh as it was built originally to go on top of Salesforce. Uh, so very cool. [03:54] **Create Property Validations Using Breeze** Chris Carolan: Create property validations using Breeze. Oh. Uh what is it? Breeze can now create custom properties with validation rules using natural language prompts. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Setting up property validation rules can be time-consuming and technical. Now you can describe the property you need, including validation and formatting rules, and Breeze generates it automatically. This ensures clean CRM data without manual configuration, reducing data entry errors and maintaining consistency consistent validation across your database. George B. Thomas: It's interesting the example they have in there. Um the screenshot. I need a property named subscription level. This property should be a drop-down select and the options should include bronze, gold, silver, and platinum. Options should appear as colored badges. I think there's um very interesting way that they're framing this and the fact that you need to know what things are called, but also you need to know the data model and structure of how you're going to want to use those things, because obviously, in this case, they can only be bronze or only be gold. But what if you live in a scenario where they could be bronze and gold at the same time for some reason? You wouldn't want it to be a drop-down select. So, um natural language of language when you know what you're talking about? Chris Carolan: Yeah. George B. Thomas: Uh oh, for sure. Um, [05:37] **Creating New** Chris Carolan: I love these examples here because they're a little bit. Like this is where like you say, George, like you know what you need in this in this example. And this might be the one that everybody sees when you pull up this this create new. Um, but this is also why I pushed back against everybody that said just, like, "Why is this in the way?" Right? Like, well, we know how hard it is to um, you know, keep mere mortal humans that are trying to use HubSpot from duplicating properties and from actually making uh, you know, an enumerated field or a drop-down uh instead of like a single text field and and things like that. And if you look at these example prompts, "I need a percentage property where the value should be between zero and 100 and allow up to two decimal places. I need a schedule appointment date property where the date must be in 2024 and only allow weekdays." Uh, man, I would love to see this work. That's a pretty a pretty cool thing. Um, but yeah, that's like what we mean by natural language. And if we can help users now ask these questions of the system, uh, which is the main step. Uh, we're going to start seeing some better outcomes. So, uh, number three, Chrome extension now supports calling. And what's changed with this update? [07:25] **HubSpot Chrome Extension** Chris Carolan: Dang it. Hit the wrong freaking button. There we go. This now supports select third-party calling users in addition to first-party users, expanding availability beyond the previous limitation. What is it? HubSpot calling users can now manage their calling connection through the HubSpot Chrome extension. 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 dialer. This update removes that friction by maintaining the calling connection seamlessly in the background through the Chrome extension. Chris Carolan: Makes sense. Uh doing a round two of unboxing HubSpot calling tomorrow uh with Zach Hussion and uh Sarah Hall from the product team. Uh, I think we're actually going to be talking about customer agent uh doing calls to you on that show. So excited for that. Uh number four, participant state management for marketing events. What is it? Update contact registration and participation status for marketing events directly from the contact record in HubSpot. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Accurate event participation data is crucial for effective marketing segmentation and follow-up. You can now easily update this information without time-consuming imports, allowing you to segment contacts based on their attendance record before, during, and after events, maintain up-to-date registration status, registered, canceled, attended, no show, and improve the accuracy of your marketing and sales reporting. [09:03] **Marketing Events** Chris Carolan: Nice. Casey Hawkins: Yeah. Happy to see this. Happy um, I like marketing events. The more but they're the more flexible they become, the more useful they become. Chris Carolan: That is true. Casey Hawkins: Is the way I'm going to choose to frame that today. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Uh and important note at the end here. Uh, you cannot update the participation status if it is already set to attended. Uh, you cannot manually set a contact participation status to no show. This is set automatically. Okay, so uh not as flexible as it might be needed to be yet. Um, I just want to say like if you if you have a spreadsheet that is handling your event coordination or your event management. Uh, and you don't think you can bring all that into HubSpot uh to help. Uh, as a major part of your marketing and sales strategy, like it usually is. Uh, please reach out. Uh it's never been easier to bring that information in. And it is so impactful when you do. Um, [10:48] **Meetings in Public Beta** Chris Carolan: Number five, "never log" option for meetings. In public beta. George B. Thomas: Interesting. Chris Carolan: What is it? The "never log" setting in HubSpot now applies to meeting activities. Your never log list will now exclude both email and meeting activities from appearing in HubSpot for specified email addresses and domains. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Previously, calendar sync in HubSpot was an all-in nothing setting. You either chose to sync all meeting events that contain at least one contact, or you chose not to sync any meeting events from your connected calendar into HubSpot. Now, you have the flexibility to turn on calendar sync with the reassurance that you can define specific email addresses and domains whose meetings should not sync into HubSpot. Um. George B. Thomas: So, this this gets interesting to me. Uh Casey, did you have something to say? Casey Hawkins: Go ahead. I was going to go ahead. George B. Thomas: You. Uh this gets very interesting to me when I think of a world where meetings equals calls and calls are associated to contacts, and when I think about a world of unstructured data and the data that I want in HubSpot versus the data that I don't want in HubSpot. And so, I might not want internal meetings to be tracked in HubSpot, therefore the calls to be associated to like employees, potentially as an example, um or there might just be like we don't want this type of call to be in the CRM because there's no value in that unstructured data when we go to talk to Breeze. So this, I think there's a very um sit down and be strategic moment with this and why you would or would not do this in your organization. Casey Hawkins: Yeah, I have a client who I think this came up when we were talking about like the recorder, um HubSpot's call recorder, and how it will automatically join meetings. And we had a discussion along those same lines around like, well, there are meetings I don't want immediately recorded and then synced to HubSpot. Um for many reasons. Um HR, things like that. So I could see it in the same vein here. Chris Carolan: Yeah, I just wish the usual reasons were uh were better. Um because so here's additional information. If there are recipients on an email or contacts on a meeting who are not on the never log list, HubSpot will still log emails and meetings to those contact records. The never log list only applies to meetings created through calendar sync from your connected calendar. Meetings created directly in HubSpot on the CRM record or created via HubSpot scheduling pages will still appear in HubSpot even if the contact is on the never log list. If there are multiple HubSpot users on a meeting, the owner of that meeting in HubSpot will control the never log logic for that meeting. This is important to know for a scenario where a contact schedules a meeting with two HubSpot users, but one HubSpot user has that contact on an individual never log list. Uh, so a fair amount of complexity here. Uh, yeah, we'll move on. Um, number six. Chris Carolan: [inaudible] will move on. [14:23] **Communication and Relationship Management** Chris Carolan: Just imagine if HubSpot was the communication and relationship management platform of the business, right? And in every all the context of the business was coming in and. George B. Thomas: Oh. Chris Carolan: Yep. Yep. That's the world we need to get to. Yeah. [14:41] **Custom Objects** Chris Carolan: Number six, quote associations to custom objects. What is it? Customers can associate quotes with custom objects. For example, if a customer creates a car custom object, each quote can be linked to a specific car model or trim, ensuring the quote reflects the correct configuration. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Linking quotes to a custom object keeps everything in one place, making it easy to reference quotes directly from the object and ensuring accurate reporting. Chris Carolan: This is lovely. Casey Hawkins: Yeah, that looks nice. Chris Carolan: Nice good update. Chris Carolan: I just need it to associate to the object library objects and then I'll be happy. [15:32] **Customer Agent** Chris Carolan: Uh, Customer agent, 28-day free access. Oh. Is live. What is it? A 28-day free access to customer agent that starts when you deploy the agent, allowing you to test it in real-world scenarios without using paid credits. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? You can now evaluate the customer agent without using credits, addressing common concerns about its value and configuration. This 28-day free access lets you you experience the agent's benefits firsthand, validate its effectiveness for your specific needs, make an informed decision about adoption. George B. Thomas: Man, I this thing has gotten to the point where if you're not using it, you should be. Like I literally had a training earlier this week with a client and we were supposed to train on something else. And I was like, hey, I bumped this training back a week because I feel like I've discovered something in your HubSpot portal that you should be using and you're not. So let's have a conversation. And we talked about credits and we talked about uh customer agent. And dang on it, I wish I would have seen this earlier in the week to be able to like it's hey, guess what? You can do this now. But um it's it's getting so good with all of the things that they've been adding. Um, one of the things that I told them to do is just go to um product updates and filter by betas and customer agent and just ting ting ting ting ting turn them on. Uh, because it'll be like Uber incredible. Um, yeah, if you're not using customer agent, just please rethink that. Chris Carolan: Yeah. Um, I'm glad I'm rereading this uh today too because I thought it was going to be a defined window of time, let's say for the month of February. Um, but it looks like it's whenever you uh deploy the agent to a channel. Uh, right? So you have as much time as you need to complete the agent setup, which for some businesses might take 28 days. George B. Thomas: Well, and I think too, Chris, it's what what Hubspot by the way, this is like, how do I want to say this? Dang on it. Uh think about your words, George. Um so one, I think this is beautiful and it feels like a very nice thing for Hubspot to do. Two, I also realize that historically, they probably have a metric butt ton of customers who have deployed it to a thing, went and tested it and burnt up a whole crap ton of uh uh credits um because they're actually testing it on the actual thing instead of testing it inside of Hubspot. And so maybe this is a way for Hubspot to be nice and realize human behavior is go to my own website and test the thing that I just built, not in realization of that I just burnt credits that could have been used for my actual customers and prospects. [18:45] **Eligibility Criteria** Chris Carolan: Yeah. Um, and speaking of eligibility criteria, all customers who have not yet deployed customer agent on a channel are eligible for a single 28-day trial. If you are actively using the customer agent, you are not eligible for a trial. Demo portals and accounts created prior to March 5th, 2024 that haven't yet migrated to the seats-based pricing model are not eligible to opt into the free trial. Uh, learn more uh at these links. Um, and one of the primary reasons for that is I don't think you have access to credits if you haven't migrated uh to this based pricing model. So, uh, keep that in mind, folks. Powerful stuff. Hubspot's begging you to try it. Um, [19:54] **Assign Conversation Owner** Chris Carolan: Assign conversation owner update with new "no owner" option. What is it? We've enhanced the existing assign conversation owner workflow action with a new option: no owner. This allows teams to automatically clear ownership on a conversation as part of a workflow, making it easy to return work to a shared view or reset ownership based on custom logic. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Previously, the this required manual steps or workarounds. With this update, unassigning a conversation can be fully automated and controlled within workflow logic. Chris Carolan: I like it. [20:53] **Extending Actions** Chris Carolan: Last on the list today, rotate record to owner action in conversation-based workflows. What is it? We're extending the existing rotate owner action to work in conversation-based workflows. The rotate record to owner action automatically moves a conversation to another inbox and assigns it to the right person or team based on who has access to that inbox. It brings a structured, automated handoff experience similar to rotate owner for CRM objects to conversations while fully respecting inbox permissions. Casey Hawkins: Why does it matter? Support teams often rely on workflow-based handoffs to move conversations between tiers, specialist groups, or from automation to a human agent. This new action gives your team the ability to automate conversation handoffs between inboxes, ensure conversations only route to specific users who can respond, keep ownership aligned with the right team as workflows progress, and standardize the way handoff work handoffs work across your support process. The result is clearer ownership, faster responses, and more efficient conversation management. George B. Thomas: Hit that beta. Chris Carolan: My goodness. And just note, uh, changing assignment on closed conversations will result in the conversation being reopened. We highly recommend that you exclude closed conversations as part of your enrollment criteria. If you use rules-based bots, we also suggest excluding bot-based work bot-based chat flows as part of your enrollment criteria and utilize the "send to team member" actions inside of bot-based chat flows for any routing needs. All right, I think I've passed my language test. George B. Thomas: A lot of bot-based. Chris Carolan: Yeah. A lot of bot-based in there. That's a hard one. [22:48] **Outro** Chris Carolan: Oh, remember, folks, you probably already own the solution you're looking for in HubSpot and it might be bot-based chat flows. Uh, 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 B. Thomas. Chris Carolan: And this has been Wake Up Customer Platform. Now go build something amazing. Have a great day, everybody.