Value-First AI Daily - Feb 20, 2026

[00:05] **Introduction** Music

[00:28] **Wake Up Customer Platform** Music

[00:59] **Good Morning** [01:00] Nico Lafakis: Good morning, HubSpot Nation. [01:03] George B. Thomas: Oh my gosh. What's up? [01:06] Nico Lafakis: He actually slacked me and but not enough that his PC is down, but it wasn't enough time for me to pull up the whole script. Um. [01:19] George B. Thomas: What is he doing over there? Is he trying to power like an entire city with his computer or something? Like new this new uh this new system location is uh has some flaws at this point. [01:33] George B. Thomas: Oh, geez. My goodness. Um how are you doing this morning, George? [01:37] George B. Thomas: I'm I'm hey, I'm doing good. I'm doing good. How are you doing? [01:41] Nico Lafakis: I'm doing well. Um I think I can if you can filibuster for a second, I think I can jump over in a way that I can share my screen. [01:51] George B. Thomas: Okay. That you can like um oh, because we don't have the way to share the screen right now, do we? Um so I guess I'll just Just filibuster for a second. Uh start to do a dance or something and keep people entertained. See, this is what live shows look like, ladies and gentlemen. We uh you je never know if there's going to be technical difficulties or not. [02:16] Nico Lafakis: All right. [02:16] George B. Thomas: Um All right, that was quick. [02:18] Nico Lafakis: Thank you. [02:19] George B. Thomas: My goodness. [02:22] Nico Lafakis: Well, I had it off. I wasn't trying to leave you. [02:25] George B. Thomas: Well, I mean, I mean flipping even because you had to flip into a different like thing, right? [02:29] Nico Lafakis: A different browser. Oh, Chris is back but. [02:32] George B. Thomas: Well, there we go. Good. [02:38] Chris Carolan: Happy Friday, Chris. How are you doing? [02:41] Chris Carolan: Happy Friday. I know what I'm doing this weekend. Um simplifying my setup apparently. [02:47] George B. Thomas: Yeah, buddy. [02:48] Chris Carolan: Uh the fact that it likes to restart itself. In the middle of this song. [02:53] George B. Thomas: Yeah, I don't understand that. Maybe it just doesn't like the song or something. I don't know. It's like I don't want to wake up. That's what it's saying. [03:00] Chris Carolan: Uh something like that. Uh we'll see if I can help it not have a choice uh over the weekend. But uh yeah, happy Friday everybody. Let's get into some updates. [03:11] Nico Lafakis: Yeah, let's do it. Get into some updates.

[03:17] **Manage Permissions** [03:17] Chris Carolan: Uh we've got managed permissions on line item properties. What is it? You can now restrict access to specific line item properties like name, unit price or discount by user or team. This gives you greater control and security within your quoting and sales workflows. [03:42] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? Until now, line items didn't support field level permissions, creating risks and operational inefficiencies for teams needing more control. With this update, you can prevent reps from editing sensitive fields like product name or unit price, give finance or repops teams exclusive access to key pricing data, align permissions on one I on line items with how you already manage deals contacts and other records and reduce errors and manual oversight by locking down what should stay fixed. [04:32] Chris Carolan: Nice, people like that one. Uh lot of flexibility being created in line items now. So a lot more people being exposed to it makes sense to have permissions available. [04:50] **Test Complete Install Flow** [04:50] Chris Carolan: All right. Next up we've got test the complete install flow from your listing preview. [04:56] George B. Thomas: Yeah. [04:56] Chris Carolan: What is it? You can now test your app's complete install flow directly from the listing preview in the listing editor before submitting your app listing for review. [05:14] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? Previously, there was no way to test the install flow from the listing preview, which could lead to install issues that only surfaced after submission. Now you can validate the full end-to-end experience, including oauth authorization and catch any problems early, giving your users a smoother install experience from day one. This update is available for all apps and is especially useful if you're adopting the new marketplace install flow. [05:58] Chris Carolan: Makes sense, super helpful. Uh just a a kind reminder and one of the reasons I do unboxings. Uh just because your app is plug and play and super easy to install does not mean that the HubSpot uh portal that it's going into uh is configured to to allow for that to happen. So please keep that in mind.

[06:26] **Azure Synapse** [06:26] Chris Carolan: Got a couple that we've been over uh throughout the week and we've got 17 uh today folks. So we're going to skip over these ones. I I see a new one uh This one or this one? I don't know. Uh Azure Synapse. [06:48] Chris Carolan: If I can bring it up on my page. There we go. [06:51] Nico Lafakis: Isn't See, it's What is it? [06:54] Chris Carolan: A native Azure Synapse. [06:57] George B. Thomas: Azure? [06:58] Chris Carolan: Azure. [07:00] George B. Thomas: Thank you, George. [07:01] Chris Carolan: Thank you. A native Azure Synapse to Data Studio connector. It's a team effort here folks. Uh that lets you connect your Azure Synapse instance to Data Studio. Bring your specified source tables into Data Studio and activate that data across HubSpot by syncing to the CRM, building segments, powering workflows and running reports. [07:38] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? This update removes a major blocker for customers who use Azure Azure. Is that it? [07:45] George B. Thomas: Azure. Yeah. [07:46] Nico Lafakis: Azure. Yeah. Snap as their data lake house or warehouse. Now you can combine the data from Azure Synapse with your HubSpot CRM data for richer analytics, better segmentation and more personalized customer experiences. Um obviously, I'm not using that tool because I don't know how to pronounce it. [08:06] George B. Thomas: Well well listen, words are hard. Like the amount of people that say Zappier versus Zapier anyway. [08:13] Nico Lafakis: I was thinking, I was thinking that. You you are George the keeper of all pronunciation. [08:20] George B. Thomas: I I try. I try. [08:23] Chris Carolan: Now is that where we're at? Uh oh. [08:26] Noise [08:28] **Data Hub Enterprise** [08:28] Chris Carolan: Uh who gets it? Data Hub Enterprise uh and I'm excited next week uh stay tuned. I'll be doing an unboxing of the Data Studio uh with the product manager from that team uh Jasmine. So very excited for that. [08:50] George B. Thomas: Nice. [08:50] Chris Carolan: Uh what have we got next? We've got daily spam submission digest, a new form notification type. What is it? We're introducing a new type of form notification, the daily spam digest notifications. Instead of sending alerts in real time, this notification sends a once daily summary when spam submissions have have been detected on a form. Spam submissions are automatically blocked and quarantined for review and only become standard submissions if you choose to release them. This new notification type gives a clear view of all form activity and helps teams quickly triage spam. So your CRM data stays clean. [10:02] Nico Lafakis: Nice little screenshot of where you can opt into this. It looks like in the form settings. Yeah, form settings. Uh why does it matter? Until now, spam submissions were filtered quietly in the background. That meant you might see fewer notification emails than expected. With the daily spam suggestion submission digest, you can clearly see which submissions were flagged as spam. This helps you understand what's really happening on your forms, troubleshoot issues faster and trust that your forms and notification settings are working as expected. [10:55] George B. Thomas: Very cool. [10:58] Chris Carolan: Very cool. Next up on the list. This is over me. [11:01] **Active Lookalike Segments** [11:01] Chris Carolan: Fallas transition as I struggled to read the last update from my screen. Uh active look alike segments. That's in public beta. What is it? Keep your look alike segments up to date as your business changes. This update allows you to automatically refresh your look alike segments on a schedule basis. So your look alike segments stays aligned with your evolving business segments. [11:43] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? Prior to this release, look alike segments represented a point in time snapshot. If the seed segment changed, whether through new contacts being added or updates to contact properties, the look alike segment did not update. Over time, this created drift between the original seed segment and the look alike segment being targeted. Now as the seed segment evolves, the look alike evolves with it. Active look alike segments ensure your targeting evolves as fast as your business does. This is very interesting to me. [12:20] George B. Thomas: Yeah. Tell me more. [12:22] Nico Lafakis: Okay. Um I mean, I'm just thinking like if you're if you make a look alike segment of your current customers and now that's active, I mean, I ca like even from like a lead scoring perspective, like what's in common with those that look alike list even or many times, the goal of a lead score is to see we were just talking about this, the like uh not people who who haven't yet hand raised, inferred handraisers. That's the term we were talking about. This look alike list of your current customers feels like maybe a an opportunity to kind of start using that to identify, you know, who you might want to be nurturing and doing some of that activity for potentially. [13:56] George B. Thomas: Yes. Yeah, nice. [13:58] Chris Carolan: Uh please use the data you already have, folks. It will help you uh build out. This seems like a great use case for that. Uh who gets it, Marketing Hub Enterprise. And we are joining that beta for sure. [14:20] **GCC High** [14:20] Chris Carolan: Uh next on the list, GCC high for Microsoft Outlook sales email integrations. [14:31] George B. Thomas: This is very specific, by the way. This is. [14:34] Chris Carolan: Any guesses uh before we click into what GCC stands for? [14:40] George B. Thomas: Uh something to do with the government. [14:43] Chris Carolan: Oh, I was not going to go there. Okay. Uh what is it? [14:48] Chris Carolan: The US Department of Defense contractors. Not sure I would ever utter that phrase on this show. Uh [14:57] George B. Thomas: I said it specifically. [14:58] Chris Carolan: Can now integrate their Outlook GCC high email accounts to HubSpot. This includes personal email connections and the Office 365 add-in. [15:18] Nico Lafakis: Why does this matter? If you're a Microsoft user on government cloud, you can now connect your Office 365 uh to HubSpot to log track and send emails through sequences, capabilities that weren't previously previously available for GCC high accounts. Crazy, this came up this week for me. [15:52] George B. Thomas: Nice. Perfect timing. I tell I tell you, I think all of our offices are bugged by HubSpot. I'm just be honest with you. [15:58] Nico Lafakis: Yeah. I'm like I'm like this is just like very wild to me that I had a call about this this [16:04] Chris Carolan: I I happen to have one of these accounts so I'm going to I'm going to join this beta to make sure I can link HubSpot. Um Yeah, glad that glad our our government audience has finally gotten something, you know, just just for them. Um we've got a major update alert George. [16:34] George B. Thomas: Yeah, okay. [16:35] Chris Carolan: Sure. [16:36] **Light Color Theme** [16:36] Chris Carolan: The light color theme has been improved. Uh that's in public beta major updates indeed. [16:48] Chris Carolan: What is it? We've made meaningful refinements to HubSpot's visual design based on feedback from customers who tried the initial release. If you haven't seen the theme yet, this is a great time to check it out. And if you have, you may notice some changes since last version. Your workflows, data and teams are unaffected. Everything works exactly as it did before. [17:22] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? A workspace that gets out of your way makes a real difference. This update brings better contrast, a more refined color palette and a cleaner visual layer that reduces eye strain and cuts down on distractions. So you can stay focused on the work that actually matters. [17:43] Chris Carolan: So, am I going to is the is the color going to change when I I do this? [17:47] George B. Thomas: No. [17:48] Chris Carolan: Okay, still Yeah. [17:51] Nico Lafakis: Like I'm not noticing the difference in the screenshot. [17:57] Chris Carolan: Yeah. I I think uh right. I like the fact that it it has a lot of user interface and user experience improvements within it. Um and that's one of the reasons I like changing over. But when you focus on the the color. [18:34] George B. Thomas: So Chris. [18:35] Chris Carolan: It's hard for other people to understand that's why you might want to see this change. [18:37] George B. Thomas: Yeah. So Chris, if you go up to the close this out, go up to the value first demo account and now you can do switch to classic theme. See like and now you'll see when you switch to that theme that your things do actually change color. Oh, yours interesting, yours will uh switch to the new theme, do that. There we go. [19:07] George B. Thomas: Yeah, now see how it's the gray. Well, see you still got this like maroon thing. Yeah, mine is all gray. Like it's the gray top, the gray bottom, the gray bars, that when I hover over it, so. I mean maroon. if we have time, I'll show you what mine looks like at the end of the show because, you know, this is a major update. [19:31] Chris Carolan: Indeed. Uh Update number 10. Uh Amazon Redshift connection to Data Studio. [19:44] **Amazon Redshift Connection** [19:44] Chris Carolan: What is it? A native Amazon Redshift to Data Studio connector that lets you connect your Amazon Redshift instance to Data Studio. Bring your specified source tables into Data Studio and activate that data across HubSpot by syncing to the CRM, building segments, powering workflows and running reports. [20:13] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? This update removes a major blocker for customers who use Amazon Redshift as their data lake house or warehouse. Now you can combine the data in Amazon Redshift with your HubSpot CRM data for richer analytics, better segmentation and more personalized customer experiences. I feel like I just read that. [20:36] Chris Carolan: Uh yeah, Data Hub Enterprise, this one also at Smart CRM Enterprise. [20:43] George B. Thomas: Um. [20:44] Chris Carolan: Uh I guess next week I'm going to be talking about specified source tables a lot uh when I'm unboxing data Studio. Um Let's see, since we refreshed the screen, double checking that this list did not change. Uh set favorite tab on multiple records. That's a new one. What is it? Mobile app users can now set a preferred default tab about activity or overview for each CRM record type. So their chosen tab displays first when opening records. [21:34] George B. Thomas: Nice. [21:34] Chris Carolan: Can we do that in the in the desktop app? [21:39] Nico Lafakis: I don't think so. [21:40] George B. Thomas: I don't think so. [21:41] Nico Lafakis: I think it yeah, I don't think so. [21:44] Nico Lafakis: Um why does it matter? You can now customize which tab appears first when opening CRM records on mobile, reducing the number of taps needed to access the information most relevant to your workflow. Different roles prioritize different data. Sales reps might need quick access to activity history while account managers focus on details. This personalization helps you work more effi- efficiently in the field by eliminating the extra navigation steps to reach your most used information. [22:25] George B. Thomas: Nice. [22:26] Chris Carolan: Very nice. Uh look forward to it coming to desktop at some point. [22:31] Nico Lafakis: I was like look at mobile going ahead of desktop. [22:34] George B. Thomas: If that don't tell you something. [22:37] Chris Carolan: Yeah. Uh custom reports included in email shares with attachments. [22:46] George B. Thomas: Oh. [22:47] Nico Lafakis: Um. [22:49] Chris Carolan: What is it? Custom reports can now be attached when you share dashboards or reports via email. This fixes an issue that previously caused custom reports to be omitted from email attachments. [23:07] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? If you rely on scheduled or one-to-one email shares to distribute insights to stakeholders who don't log into HubSpot regularly, missing custom reports broke your workflow and made email sharing unreliable. Custom reports now behave consistently with all other report types, so your email shares are complete every time. [23:38] George B. Thomas: Nice. That's a good. That's a good quality of life. [23:46] **New Notion Integration** [23:46] Chris Carolan: A new notion integration is in private beta. Another data hub integration. I look forward talking about source tables. Uh what is it? A new two-way data sync app with notion. This new app mirrors the comprehensive integration capabilities found in our 100 plus data sync apps, which automate the synchronization of data fields and objects across platforms, reducing manual work and ensuring data consistency with customizable field mappings, filter settings and real-time updates. Data sync allows users to maintain up-to-date information across their business tools. Alongside, two, I think, notion is available as a source in Data Studio where teams can ingest notion databases into a pre-CRM workspace to join clean and transform the data. When and only when they're ready, they can activate the data set in HubSpot. Uh quick note, Data Studio is currently in beta and included with data hub professional and enterprise. [25:10] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? With this Data sync app, notion and HubSpot stay aligned automatically. Changes made in either system are reflected in the other, so both tools are always up to date. It also makes moving data from notion into HubSpot faster and painless when you're ready to migrate. With Data Studio, you can bring notion data into your workspace to join, enrich, combine and clean data before using it in the CRM, reports, workflows, segments or even exported again. [25:51] George B. Thomas: Interesting. [25:53] Chris Carolan: I know some fellow uh value first contributors that are going to love that one. [25:59] George B. Thomas: Yeah, I I don't really use notion but I'm like a lot of people do, so this is this is kind of cool. [26:04] Chris Carolan: This this this is huge for sure. Um Next we've got customize your HubSpot sales toolbar in Gmail. [26:13] George B. Thomas: Oh yeah. [26:14] Chris Carolan: What is it? Customize the sales toolbar in Gmail to show only the tools you need, reducing clutter and fitting everything into a single row. [26:28] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? You can now tailor the toolbar to fit your workflow, reducing visual distractions and improving efficiency. By showing only the tools you regular you use regularly, you'll reduce visual clutter in your compose window, keep all tools accessible in one row, focus on the features most relevant to your sales process. [26:53] George B. Thomas: Man, I feel like this update is only adding fuel to the fire that's happening on LinkedIn right now. So we can customize the HubSpot Gmail toolbar but we can't customize the HubSpot menu. Oh, okay, sounds great. [27:08] Chris Carolan: Cute to you folks, anyway, we'll see. Q to you. [27:11] George B. Thomas: It's coming. [27:12] Nico Lafakis: Have you been talking to Max lately? [27:16] George B. Thomas: Well, no, it's actually uh anyway, I I referenced Max's name in the conversation, but yeah, it's uh [27:27] Nico Lafakis: He's just been yelling about it a lot. [27:30] George B. Thomas: Yeah. [27:31] George B. Thomas: Yeah. [27:33] George B. Thomas: I mean, because let's listen, they use the word in there uh visual clutter and for some people in your organization, there's a lot of visual clutter in that main navigation. But what's funny is you might be complaining about that, but then I go into your portal and you haven't removed the visual clutter from the right and left sidebars. Um anyway, I digress. [27:59] Chris Carolan: I digress. Uh we we pick our spots uh for sure. Uh [28:09] **Teams Import for Scalable Org Management** [28:09] Chris Carolan: I don't remember talking about this earlier this week even though it says a couple days ago. Uh teams import for scalable org management. What is it? Teams import introduces bulk CSV creation of HubSpot teams, including nested team hierarchies. This solves a major gap in team management at scale. Currently, customers must create teams manually, one by one, which can take days or even weeks. The new import experience lets admins generate complete team structures in minutes. [28:53] Nico Lafakis: Why does it matter? Customers have repeatedly highlighted that the inability to import or bulk create teams prevents them from modeling their organization accurately in HubSpot. Examples include customers manually creating hundreds of teams and nesting them one at a time. Desire for the ability to upload existing structures, limitations with SCIM and existing user imports that do not support full team structures. This friction compounds as orgs grow, creating a scalability wall and driving operational inefficiencies. [29:54] Chris Carolan: Hundreds of teams. Wow. [29:56] Nico Lafakis: Well, if you're like a HubSpot sized organization, I bet HubSpot has hundreds of teams. [30:00] George B. Thomas: Yeah Oh, without a doubt. [30:01] Nico Lafakis: So. [30:02] Chris Carolan: There. Yeah, love to have them as a customer. Uh yeah, let's join that beta. That's where we're going. We're planning for scale here. No, we're going to join this beta, check it out. Uh And let's see. This order changed on me a little bit, so I'm just going to click this button to go back. I think we've hit everything that's new. [30:32] George B. Thomas: That's we had. [30:34] Chris Carolan: Yeah. 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 Monday 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. [31:04] Nico Lafakis: I'm Casey Hawkins. [31:06] George B. Thomas: See Casey, 9:00 on the dot. And I'm George B. Thomas. And this has been wake up customer platform. Now go build something amazing. Have a great day, everybody.