Here’s exactly how the HubSpot blog team uses AI

I’m going to be actual with you: I’m exhausted. We blinked, and it felt like the whole lot was run by synthetic intelligence (AI). I’m being dramatic, in fact, however AI is transforming how we work, play, and stay quicker than any tech I’ve seen in my decade-long advertising and marketing profession.

With so many modifications and unknowns, it’s been overwhelming even for the seasoned entrepreneurs and writers right here at HubSpot. However the extra we be taught, the extra we understand AI does not should be the enemy of content material writers.

When used as a considerate addition to a human-led content creation process, AI generally is a highly effective instrument that helps us all work quicker and smarter – with out sacrificing our human contact.

Right here on the HubSpot weblog crew, we have been experimenting with AI for some time now, and, like everybody, we’re nonetheless figuring it out.

However we have additionally uncovered some thrilling use circumstances which have streamlined a few of our extra time-intensive workflows, improved our output, and given us time again for deeper subject analysis.

We’re not about gatekeeping, so let’s speak by means of how we’ve introduced AI into our writing course of.

How HubSpot Bloggers Use AI in Their Writing Course of

Just lately, I used to be developing with subjects for HubSpot’s Breaking the Blueprint column, and had some hassle getting began. I tagged ChatGPT in for some assist, prompting:

“I‘m brainstorming article subjects for a weblog centered on giving entrepreneurs and enterprise professionals from underrepresented teams recommendation and knowledge they should know. I need to goal particular subjects and issues which are distinctive to those teams. I’d additionally like to the touch upon subjects associated to the evolving function of AI on society and enterprise. Are you able to give me some concepts?”

This is a peek at its response:

From there, I workshopped the solutions after which met with a colleague to finalize the subjects that finest suited our viewers.

Like I mentioned, AI doesn‘t absolutely exchange bouncing concepts off a colleague, however it will possibly present a promising place to begin once you’re caught. This obtained my artistic juices flowing, and that’s all I wanted. As soon as now we have our path, it is time to dive into analysis.

Step 2: We energy our analysis with AI as an data assistant.

With our subject and angle outlined, we have to perceive our topic inside and outside. That is the place AI turns into our analysis powerhouse.

As a content material marketer and editor, my high concern is all the time high quality and accuracy. I need to be certain that the knowledge I put in entrance of any viewers is efficacious and reliable. Meaning a whole lot of analysis, and good research takes time.

Generative AI might help exponentially right here with its means to collect and summarize data from a number of sources, usually in seconds. In actual fact, 47% of marketers report utilizing AI for analysis already.

In terms of my very own analysis course of, I now not should filter by means of pages and pages of Google outcomes to search out the knowledge I would like. As an alternative, AI does many of the heavy trying to find me and wraps it up into a pleasant, easy-to-understand bundle. It doesn’t simply give me a useful resource that may reply my query like a search engine; it offers me a solution straight.

Forsey additionally sees the benefits of using AI for content material analysis.

She recollects, “As soon as, I wanted to write down a publish — paradoxically — concerning the differences between ChatGPT, Google‘s Bard [now Gemini], and Bing’s AI-powered search engine. So, I requested ChatGPT: ’Are you able to inform me the variations between ChatGPT, Google‘s Bard, and Bing’s AI-powered search engine? Please put the professionals and cons in a desk format.’”

Shortly after, Caroline obtained again an in depth chart illustrating precisely what she needed in a number of quick paragraphs:

Kaitlin Milliken, Senior Program Supervisor for our Freelance Author Community, considers AI a giant a part of her analysis course of as properly. She shares the way it’s helped her distill details about HubSpot merchandise when writing.

“Once we write about merchandise, I am going to ask AI to elucidate in additional element what makes a sure product distinctive, and it offers me an inventory of specifics that may assist inform my writing/modifying.”

The end result? Utilizing AI for content material analysis and evaluation has helped us dig deeper and uncover angles and understandings we might have missed or taken extra time to return throughout with out it. Now comes the precise writing.

Step 3: We collaborate with AI on tough outlines and messy first drafts.

Right here‘s the place issues get fascinating. We don’t simply analysis and brainstorm with AI — we really let it assist us write. However there are parameters to our method.

The HubSpot weblog crew doesn’t simply copy, paste, and publish AI-generated content material. Reasonably, we use AI as a jumping-off level — that messy first draft to gasoline concepts.

One of many massive causes folks learn HubSpot articles is to be taught from real-life entrepreneurs, gross sales, and repair folks. They need knowledgeable, verified examples and accounts of what works and what doesn’t.

That type of human experience doesn’t come from AI. Human judgment and storytelling can’t be replicated. AI can’t produce lived data, expertise, and insights, however it will possibly shortly collect preliminary, basic data for our writers and editors to construct right into a closing piece.

Our writers use AI to avoid wasting time, notably for extra basic, academic articles. Many, together with myself, use AI to draft the extra simple sections of weblog posts to allow them to deal with extra impactful ones.

As an illustration, I’ve usually turned to AI to draft conclusions in latest months. With the majority of my article content material finalized, I pop into ChatGPT and ask it to draft a conclusion that matches the tone and concepts shared. From there, I refine and edit to my liking.

HubSpot author Tristen Taylor additionally makes use of AI for weblog intros and conclusions. She explains:

“Earlier than utilizing AI, I usually discovered myself rewriting introductions and conclusion paragraphs a number of occasions. Now that I’ve entry to those instruments, my time for finishing weblog articles has been minimize down tremendously. AI can seize the subject, intent, and focused key phrases I would like by means of refined AI prompts.”

She provides, “It additionally permits me to refocus on the content material or data of worth that readers are in search of, as a substitute of ruminating over small particulars at the start or finish.”

Our crew has used AI in our artistic transient and outlining course of for over a 12 months, and we‘ve began experimenting with AI-generated first drafts. Up to now, we’ve discovered AI drafting to be a useful time-saving measure for some subjects, although not all.

For extra basic subjects, equivalent to “what’s” and “the right way to’s,” it frees up extra of our writers‘ and editors’ time to talk with different consultants, collect distinctive examples and case research, and “humanize” extra generic subjects general, however AI can’t provide the unique concepts wanted for op-eds and thought management items.

Learn: How to Humanize AI Content So It Will Rank, Engage, and Get Shared in 2025

That is the place our philosophy comes into play: “AI assists, people lead.” AI helps ideation, drafting, and iteration — however folks make the ultimate name. AI gathers the items; we put collectively the puzzle. We by no means publish AI-generated content material with out considerate human editorial oversight.

Learn more about our AI principles here.

Step 4: We use AI to investigate knowledge and uncover insights.

Numbers don‘t lie. They add credibility to our articles, however they don’t all the time inform their story clearly both. This is how AI helps us make sense of our knowledge.

Numbers aren’t my sturdy swimsuit. When confronted with survey knowledge or efficiency analytics, my head spins a bit, so when the prospect of utilizing AI for knowledge evaluation happened, I couldn’t have been extra excited.

Earlier this 12 months, I examined this use case for our State of Inclusive Marketing 2025 report. ChatGPT permits you to add spreadsheets, so I connected the file and requested it to offer me probably the most important traits coming by means of the info.

Initially, the agent simply returned a simplified spreadsheet (womp), however once I requested that it clarify the qualitative traits in paragraph type, right here’s what I obtained:

Might I’ve distilled these traits with out the assistance of AI? Sure — however not within the minute or two it took ChatGPT.

Senior Employees Author and Web site Editor Amy Rigby echoes this, reflecting on analyzing knowledge for our website marketing report.

“LLMs are extremely highly effective at figuring out patterns in knowledge, particularly ChatGPT’s o3 mannequin. I used ChatGPT to assist me spotlight traits and additional phase our web site advertising and marketing survey knowledge, leading to a a lot deeper, richer report. I used to get pissed off with ChatGPT as a result of its math was continuously fallacious, however the o3 model has significantly improved.”

Whereas it’s tempting simply to take the traits AI finds and run, double-check them. As we all know, AI could make errors and make issues up. That is the biggest challenge marketers report going through with AI, so take the time to spot-check your knowledge to make sure the agent didn’t take any liberties.

(Be aware: OpenAI simply launched GPT 5, so hopefully, it’s improved on this space.)

Step 5: We experiment with AI-generated visuals to boost our content material.

Nice phrases deserve nice visuals. This is how we use AI to create compelling imagery and interactive components that might in any other case be out of attain.

So, I fancy myself a eager self-taught graphic designer, however writing stays my first and most refined talent. Whereas written content material nonetheless issues, consumer content consumption habits and shopping for habits more and more demand extra visible and interactive mediums like movies, infographics, and quizzes.

This sort of superior content material is out of attain for me and entrepreneurs with restricted design and improvement expertise.

Fortunately, many AI instruments can be found now to assist us. In actual fact, our AI Trends for Marketers report discovered that picture and design turbines are tied with basic chatbots for the preferred AI instrument entrepreneurs use.

Source

Senior advertising and marketing supervisor and AI blogger Martina Bretous showcases generative AI’s prowess on this space in her sequence “Is it Real or AI?”

In it, she crafts a wide range of multimedia content material (i.e., video, audio, pictures) utilizing AI and challenges readers to see if they’ll determine them. As an illustration, this video of a phenomenal yellow hen she featured was AI-generated on PikaLabs.

Spectacular, proper? I additionally used ChatGPT to create this extremely particular featured picture of a piggy financial institution representing a Fb finances.

Source

General, AI helps us create visible components that may really improve the expertise of our content material and make the ideas simpler to know. There are tons of sturdy AI video and AI image generators, together with HubSpot’s Breeze, that you should use to do the identical.

Step 6: We use AI as a top quality management verify.

Earlier than any piece goes stay, it goes by means of our modifying course of. And sure, AI performs a job right here too — however not in the best way you may count on.

Whether or not we understand it or not, we’ve been utilizing AI for proofreading and modifying for many years.

Give it some thought: spell and grammar verify on Microsoft Phrase and Google Docs, “autocorrect” on iPhone, Grammarly — even non-writers depend on these instruments to reduce misspelled phrases and grammar points that would come off as negligent or unprofessional.

As we speak, this has simply gotten extra superior.

“Persons are rightfully involved about AI’s potential to hallucinate in modifying, however one factor that will get misplaced within the debate is that people make errors, too,” displays Rigby.

In latest months, she has turned to AI brokers as proofreaders and even editors for her articles.

She continues, “Each author is aware of the expertise of being too near their very own work to see it clearly or being in such a rush to fulfill a deadline that they miss one thing. So, along with human editorial oversight, I see LLMs as one other set of eyes, an additional layer of verification.”

“I fact-check all of my articles, however for added assurance, I generally run them by means of ChatGPT or Claude and ask the AI to flag any errors, which I can then take a look at extra intently. AI usually does catch typos and errors that I missed.”

She doesn’t simply cease at grammar and spelling. Rigby recommends asking brokers for suggestions on even the right way to enhance your writing.

She says, “I generally ask AI to critique my work, poke holes in my logic, and level out weaknesses I’ll not have observed.”

I prefer to immediate it with one thing like, ‘Suppose like a digital marketer who will learn this piece to resolve which software program to purchase. What issues would they’ve after studying this? What questions would come up that weren’t answered within the piece?” This helps me return and re-examine and strengthen my arguments.”

Rigby has additionally constructed a customized GPT referred to as StyleScout for our crew’s inside use, which helps writers shortly scan their drafts for fashion inconsistencies. This was as straightforward as importing our inside fashion guides to the GPT and letting AI deal with the remainder to make sure our content is consistently on brand.

“Earlier than I submit an article, I can run it by means of the GPT and get a line-by-line breakdown of something that may violate our fashion tips. Sure, AI generally returns outputs which are overly pedantic or heavy-handed. That’s why human judgment all the time will get the ultimate say. It is my accountability to verify that what it tells me is smart and correct. If it isn’t, I disregard it.”

Take a look at our free Masterclass “How to Create Custom GPTs That 10x Your Marketing Results” to learn to construct a customized GPT in your crew.

Step 7: We use AI to whip up “microcopy” (i.e., meta descriptions, social posts).

The article is written, edited, and able to publish. However our work is not executed—now we have to put it on the market. That is one other space the place AI shines.

For some motive, author’s block strikes hardest once I write meta descriptions or social posts for my weblog articles. Maybe it’s subject burnout, or I’m simply too near the items to distill the true golden nuggets of knowledge.

Regardless of the motive, shortly producing the precise messaging to advertise your content material is one among my favourite makes use of of AI. As an illustration, right here’s what ChatGPT gave me once I requested it for some social copy based mostly on this text:

It’s not excellent, nevertheless it offers me one thing to take and make my very own.

Jamie Juviler, HubSpot Supervisor, Employees Writing & AEO, has additionally leveraged AI for meta descriptions. He suggests feeding your introduction paragraph into an AI chatbot after which asking it to provide a 100-150-character meta description.

The fantastic thing about this method is that AI handles the preliminary artistic carry, liberating us as much as deal with refining the message and making certain it aligns with our model voice.

Bonus: AI helps us keep present on the trade.

It could sound cliché, however the rumors are true: Advertising modifications shortly. Fortunately, AI helps our weblog crew sustain with it.

Juviler explains his method. “On this new realm of AEO and, extra broadly, AI-powered advertising and marketing, I have been leveraging Gen AI as an data consolidation agent.”

“We‘re consistently flooded with AI-related information, suggestions, and applied sciences, so each time I come throughout a brand new piece of knowledge — whether or not it’s a video, weblog publish, podcast, e-newsletter, and so on.— I run it by means of a custom GPT I’ve arrange that helps me decide whether or not it’s vital or new. Whether it is, the AI modifies a private monitoring doc I preserve for the trade as wanted.”

This technique permits Juviler to remain on high of the stream of AI information with out getting overwhelmed. This idea may be used for different traits we cowl, like electronic mail advertising and marketing, creator monetization, and social platform algorithm modifications, or any subject of curiosity in your trade.

We’re on this collectively.

Like everybody right now, our crew is studying as we go in relation to AI. The expertise has its advantages but additionally drawbacks, and with consistently evolving expertise and unclear laws, it’s a little bit of the Wild West. However we’re figuring it out.

We need to lead with transparency with our viewers, so we’re dedicated to sharing how we use AI in our work, because it evolves, and each step of the best way.

We are going to embrace a disclaimer on any publish we write that has been AI-supported, letting you understand that we used AI to finish the publish. And also you’re welcome to dig into the HubSpot Media AI guidelines to be taught extra.

We don’t know what tomorrow holds, however we all know AI will assist us all navigate this altering panorama. We all know AI cannot exchange the humanity behind the HubSpot weblog — and we are going to by no means take that human connection without any consideration.