INBOUND, HubSpot’s annual conference for professionals in marketing and sales, was held in San Francisco this year, featuring insights on marketing, sales, customer experience, and AI innovation over three days. The event included new attractions like the Creators Corner and Tech Stack Showcase Stage, alongside popular offerings such as HubSpot HQ and Braindates.
HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah opened the conference by discussing AI’s transformative role in various sectors. He highlighted the tension surrounding AI, stating that perspectives on its impact vary widely. Shah posed a thought-provoking question about whether AI represents an opportunity or a threat, explaining that the answer is nuanced.
An informal poll of 6,000 attendees about competing with AI revealed differing interpretations of the question, with Shah suggesting a shift from a zero-sum mindset to one of collaboration. He emphasized that the goal should not be to oppose AI but to build alongside it. Despite AI’s rapid advancement, the learning curve remains linear, indicating that users must adapt and learn to fully leverage the technology.
During his keynote, Shah advised attendees to integrate AI into their daily workflows by first attempting tasks with AI assistance. He encouraged a mindset of re-evaluation for tasks that do not initially succeed with AI, suggesting to revisit them as technology evolves.
To maximize AI effectiveness, Shah stressed the importance of prompt and context engineering. He recommended top-tier language models like OpenAI’s GPT-5 and emphasized the need for users to diversify their prompt strategies.
Looking towards the future, Shah predicted a significant transformation in AI, suggesting that we are entering a decade of AI agents rather than merely a year. He introduced the TEAM strategy—triage, experiment, automate, and measure—as a roadmap for teams to systematically incorporate AI tools into their workflows. He concluded by underscoring the importance of emotional intelligence as an essential complement to AI capabilities.
Source: https://venturebeat.com/ai/hubspots-dharmesh-shah-on-ai-mastery-why-prompts-context-and-experimentation