Let's talk abourt some AI today! 6/13/2025
Chris, Nico, and George B. Thomas break down the HubSpot/AWS AI summit. They argue that connected data matters more than raw AI power, debate whether "AI-first" or "human-first" framing wins, and say automating tedious work actually restores joy to professional roles.
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Good morning, LinkedIn friends, HubSpot Nation. Welcome to another episode of let's build AI skills with Nico, George and Chris. Happy Friday the 13th, June 2025. How are we doing today, fellas?
Doing good, doing good. Just. Just about rested and relaxed, but, yeah, otherwise doing good.
Yeah, I'm. I'm excited to sit here and listen to you guys probably unpack what your last couple days have looked like. I don't know if I'm doing as good as I was a minute ago before you said Friday the 13th, but I'll deal with it. I'll deal with it.
Yeah. After I said that, I was like, I want to ask Claude about that, like, if that makes any sense. The fact that we just like throw out there, like, oh, this is. This is a bad luck day, everybody.
Just so you know, like, Claude thinks about bad luck. Is that it?
That would be a fun conversation.
Oh, man. Speaking of humans always being in the loop, things like that will always be available to us. Yeah, we had had some fun this week on Wednesday, going to the AI summit HubSpot and AWS put on.
Got a nice, nice little preview of San Francisco, at least. I don't.
Yeah, this is like a test run for Inbound in September.
Nice, nice.
At a nice warehouse venue that is usually for raves and concerts.
Oh, wow. Okay.
So, yeah, had a little bit of that vibe coming in.
You're industrial.
Yeah.
We're talking about eons. Yeah. All right. That have been cool.
Yeah. But key takeaways for me. Speed, speed, speed.
Oh.
So it was HubSpot for HubSpot Ventures and designed for startups as the audience. So a lot of conversation about how fast can you go? Like means everything right now. Another thing was ideation, the ability to have ideas to execute on.
Yeah.
One word I didn't hear a lot was focus. As much as that's always been, you know, a thing that every startup must try to do. Didn't hear a lot of that, which makes sense to me. Let's see what else. There's a great conversation about data on the importance of that connected layer, meaning everything. Obviously HubSpot going to keep building in that direction in order to support that layer. I think more than anything else, that's their. That's their priority as they. As you know, we had Sage elon unboxing HubSpot, MCP and the idea of HubSpot everywhere. Not that we will always be in HubSpot, but that HubSpot will always be around to capture data from wherever it is so that we can have context. I think context might have been the most commonly used word throughout the day.
Yep.
Yeah. And then AI first.
Oh God.
Right. Like the message of the day right after. So, you know, I was going in there expecting to not be surprised that really focused on AI and not the humans and not focused on, you know, the things that have gotten away of SAS software adoption, I believe are going to get in the way of AI adoption as well. But the first few talks, you know, Nick Nicholas and the opener and in the little discussion after that, like it was the main topic or it was brought up as a main point of the adoption issue being a primary challenge. Then the rest of the day it was basically how to build an AI first company. And could we like SaaS marketers, can we have picked a, a faster way to alienate human beings like that. We're trying to bring up to speed here.
Yeah, it, it's funny when you say that, Chris. Literally there was a post, let's see, it would have been yesterday at 6:51am by one Mr. Mr. Michael Stelzner. And his post goes, there's a catchy phrase going around, AI first. I caught myself saying it, but I felt like something was off. Started wondering if there was a way to be optimistic about AI while also being human focused. The threat of AI is real. Yet also I believe we can thrive with AI. What if instead we embrace this phrase AI enhanced. I want to be an AI enhanced marketer, an AI enhanced creator, and AI enhanced entrepreneur. What would that make possible? When I enhance my gifts and skills with the aid of AI, lots of possibilities open up. I take my ideas further up, level my strategies, discover more insights and unlock new levels of creativity. Tell me a marketer, creator or entrepreneur who doesn't want that. We all do. It goes on. It goes on. I chime in as a comment. This is why for the last two years, because by the way, like we've been doing this at some sort shape or fashion. For two years I've been saying human powered and AI assisted. It should always be human first, customer first. I'm a firm believer in augmenting ourselves and our teams over replacing them. To which Michael said, George Lovett fully agree, like, AI first needs to hit the trash can vibe, coding vibe, anything and AI first. Can we just stop it? Okay, that's, that's my, that's my input for this episode.
Yeah, I definitely don't like, I mean, you guys both know it. Like I'm, I hate marketing terms getting thrown on this stuff. So I think AI first is probably the biggest piece of, like, BS I've heard in a really, really long time. And the. The whole idea, like, vibe stuff, right? Yeah. Like, somebody to your point tried to, like, vibe prompting and, you know, vibe marketing. And it's like, okay, you know, that was a word before the thing, right? So, like, you could have been doing that this whole time. So that's why you shouldn't. Yeah, right. You know, yeah. Like, to your point, it's trying to throw a label on this stuff. What I really loved was Mike. Mike Cannon from Atlassian. Sorry, important people's names probably shouldn't forget. Had had one of the greatest things to say, which was that they weren't concerned with being this, like, company that was all about, hey, flashy AI, AI here, AI AI there, AI everywhere. It was just a matter of, like, hey, that's Internet. That's electricity. That's standard. Let's go forward, right? Like, okay, that's the new norm. So, you know, we're using it, so let's move forward. Not like, hey, here's big billboard signs. We use AI over here too. Right? Like, we all know it's out. We all know it's a thing. Beating people over the head with it just shows. It literally screams to me that you just joined the game.
Yeah.
So when you run out there and you say, like, we're AI first, we're AI driven, that tells me that, like, you just woke up, like, two weeks ago.
It's funny because. And again, I'm the old fart on the show, but, like, to hear you talk, Nico, I feel like there are some people who are showing up with noise and nonsense to gain fake attention. And then there's this saying that my dad used to tell me, and I never really understood it until, like, I got older, but he's like, a true person. Will walk quietly, but also carry a big stick. Like, use it when you need it, but shut the beep up. Like, just anyway.
Yeah, you would have loved Mike's. Like, that was a conversation with Mike and. And Yamini, and he. He brought up the idea of joy over productivity.
Oh, yes, yes.
And Atlassian, he said they talk about developer joy rather than developer productivity. Focus on removing what makes work unjoyful rather than optimizing. And that AI should restore professional joy by taking out all that was a light theme throughout the day. It's like, most of the jobs, like, the jobs that nobody likes. Let's use AI there the time.
Like, the top three things I would say I heard yesterday, I don't want to cut you off on it, but was just like speed, speed, velocity, momentum. However you want to define that. Like I guess joy is the, the right word to use in that jobs should be joyful. Not to try to do the alliteration there, but that's, that's just the way that everybody seems to be looking at it that hey, here's this chance to Mike put it the best way. He, he went in and said, okay, like what is it that you love to do about your job?
Yeah. Yeah.
Okay, now let's use AI to get rid of all the stuff you don't like to do about your job. Because we hired you to do the stuff that you love to do. We didn't hire you to do the stuff that you don't like to do. Like that's the era that we move into. Right. And then the third thing, which I know Chris loved, so I know I cut you off, but I give you, give you the bridge right back. Here's a crazy one for you guys. The org chart, be it changing. Things are getting a little bit more horizontal, less pyramid like, and people are starting to, oh, I don't know, move on and, and enjoy the entirety of their role.
Yeah.
As service department team members and as organization members. As opposed to like, no, you're stuck in your silo, you go do your, your bit and then you hand it off to so and so and they do their bit and you'll never see the end result of what your bits have done.
That.
That seems to be very much a bye bye in the new world.
Chris, can I dip in here and then hand it off to you?
