On Tuesday 17 June 2025, I had the chance to attend GROW 2025, HubSpot’s flagship Australian event held in Sydney for the first time post-COVID. It was a full house: marketers, technologists, business leaders, and creators all gathered to talk about the future of digital. As someone who has helped implement HubSpot solutions for organisations like Queensland Tourism Industry Council and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine, it felt like the conversations we’ve been having with clients were suddenly playing out live on stage.

With some of HubSpot’s top minds flying in from the US, including CEO Yamini Rangan, and special appearances by Aussie icons like Joe Brumm, the creator of Bluey, the day delivered a mix of vision and practicality I found genuinely useful.

AI is moving fast but we’re still catching up

Yamini Rangan’s keynote was one of the most insightful sessions I’ve attended in a while. She spoke about the shift from conversational AI to what she called agentic architecture, where AI doesn’t just respond but actually does the work. Think of it as having a digital teammate that manages prospecting, resolves support tickets, or even drafts content for you.

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google are releasing updates almost weekly which means the capabilities are right there, ready for all of us to tap into. But as Yamini pointed out during her keynote, innovation itself isn’t the challenge: it’s adoption!. While the tech is moving fast, most businesses are still playing catch-up, figuring out how to apply it meaningfully and sustainably.

“This is like the internet in the 90s,” Yamini said. “Just because the tech is here doesn’t mean businesses are ready.”

That really stuck with me. Because I see this every day, clients are keen, but they don’t always know where to start.

Australia and NZ? Definitely match-fit

One year ago, most companies in our region were just experimenting. This year? They’re deploying. Yamini said it best: we’ve moved from curiosity to action. And the results are starting to show.

Where to start: 3 practical AI use cases

Yamini shared three entry points where AI is already making a difference:

• Customer Support: HubSpot’s AI-powered Customer Agent is now used by over 3,000 companies. The average resolution rate is 52%, but some local companies have seen up to 80%. That’s four out of five tickets resolved by AI.
• Sales Prospecting: Sales teams still only spend about 25–30% of their time with customers. HubSpot’s AI can handle the research, map out accounts, track intent signals, and help tailor messages, freeing reps up to actually sell. 
• Marketing Content: This is where most of our clients are actually seeing the biggest value—and it’s definitely how I personally use AI every day, including reviewing and optimising this very article. Content creation is AI’s sweet spot. From blogs to social posts, teams are using tools like HubSpot’s Content Hub to generate content that actually converts, and its Remake function, to tailor that content to multiple audiences and and repurpose it into different formats and channels… a real timesaver that delivers actual impact. HubSpot made a bold move early on: don’t make AI a separate product. Instead, they embedded it into every Hub… and I confess Content Hub is my favourite!
  
  

SEO is changing… and not in a good way

One of the biggest wake-up calls? Yamini’s take on Google’s AI overviews. They’ve led to a 20–70% drop in search traffic across the board. Even HubSpot felt the hit.

“The blue link era is fading. People aren’t finding your blog from Google anymore.”

So what do we do?

• Go where your audience already is: Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube, and niche communities
• Use AI to understand intent and deliver content that fits the platform, not just your site
  
  

AI isn’t just about efficiency. It’s a growth engine

I love how Yamini framed it: AI isn’t about cutting staff, it’s about scaling up. They are doing it and walking the talk internally. They use it for customer support automation, content generation (around 50% of it is AI-assisted), prospecting and intent-led marketing. Their goal is 80% employee usage each week and have created teams to share learnings and prompt libraries. AI is now embedded in their culture, not just a set of tools and they have achieved…

• Support: 20% growth in customer base, flat headcount, 40% of support tickets now handled by AI
• Marketing: With AI mapping intent to content, conversion rates have jumped 80%
• Sales: Prospecting powered by AI has lifted win rates by 5–10%

Leadership in an AI world

Yamini’s leadership message landed hard:

“You won’t be replaced by AI. You’ll be replaced by someone who uses AI better than you.”

To lead in this space, we need to:

1. Build AI fluency ourselves
2. Use AI daily (Yamini uses ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and HubSpot CoPilot every day)
3. Model it for our teams
4. Focus on real, everyday use cases that add value

My final takeaway

GROW 2025 reminded me that the future of business isn’t about choosing between human and machine. It’s about bringing both together.

At Integral, we’ve already started applying these lessons with clients. From automating support workflows and creating membership portals to building smarter content strategies, AI is helping us do better work, not just faster work.

And if there’s one thing I’m taking back to my team, it’s this: Stay human. Stay curious. And don’t wait to get started with AI.