Get advice from billionaires with an AI-crafted board of directors, tips from HubSpot’s CMO Do you ever look at CEOs and wonder, “What makes them so successful?” I‘ll tell you their secret: It’s not what they know, it's who they know. Every great leader has a board of directors — smart people who challenge their thinking. But, what if you don’t have a board of directors? Well, with AI, you can build your own, entirely for free. Your AI board of directors can help you transform your decision-making processes and get unstuck in minutes. The time you save can help you level up your work and focus on what you love in your personal life. Below, I’ll share the 10-minute process I used to build a personal board of directors. How to Build Your Board of Directors Before you start prompting, choose your favorite AI chatbot. For this example, I’ll be working with ChatGPT o3-mini-high. However, if you have a free account, ChatGPT 4o will get the job done. Now, let’s begin. 1. Choose your board of directors. The beauty of an AI board of directors is that you can pick anyone you want. That might be: Your role models in business. Consultants with full client rosters. Experts with direct experience on the problem you’re trying to solve. Or a combination of the three. For my example, I want my board to include amazing entrepreneurs and leaders with diverse experiences. These different...

Supercharge your productivity with an AI project assistant: A step-by-step approach When it comes to AI, it’s easy to get distracted by all the flashy demos and headlines that are constantly splashed across social media. But the fact is, most people still aren’t leveraging AI in one of the simplest, most impactful ways it can be used: by creating an AI project assistant. An AI project assistant can help you manage a wide range of projects across a wide range of business environments. It can dramatically boost your productivity and efficiency. Best of all, it’s much easier to set up than you might think. In this article, I’ll walk through our simple, three-step approach to building an AI-powered project assistant, giving you the tools you need to create an AI assistant that will set you and your business up for success. What is an AI project assistant? Broadly speaking, an AI project assistant uses a generative AI platform like ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini to manage a specific project within your organization. For example, in our roles at HubSpot, some of our core projects include overhauling how we create demand, driving internal transformation via AI, and augmenting our go-to-market strategy. Each of these projects is associated with a desired outcome, and each one comes with lots and lots of people, communications, and all sorts of other data. In our case, we’re managing huge teams with hundreds of people, but projects don’t have to be that massive to benefit from...

The Growth Hack Era is ending, according to Digiday's former Editor-in-Chief Let’s take a moment to commiserate, marketers. Google is sending the whole planet to Reddit; your favorite social platforms are getting bought, banned, or abandoned; and your carefully crafted email just got pushed to a new category at the back of the inbox. Oh, and have you heard of this little thing called AI that no one is talking about? But today’s master is no stranger to seismic changes in media. He’s been doing this since before the dot-com bubble. And he’s got a message you need to hear to survive this one: Stop peeing in the pool. Brian Morrissey Founder, The Rebooting; Former Editor-in-Chief, Digiday Claim to fame: Brian’s been covering digital media and marketing long enough to remember when Pets.com was a thing. Lesson 1: Stop peeing in the pool. When every digital marketing channel is in a state of change, all of the usual playbooks are out the window — but Brian Morrissey sees this as more of a correction than a catastrophe. “Every business got used to distribution being a commodity that you could just purchase off the shelf,” he says. For years, you could pay for a nearly guaranteed audience on almost any channel. “But this is contrary to how marketing in general has worked… forever.” Morrissey points out that the rise of performance marketing led (perhaps inevitably) to an era of growth hacks. A generation of...

How Gen Z is using AI to build personal brands — a guide that helped me build a LinkedIn presence that’s reached over 140 million I started my career in modeling, which, as anyone in the industry knows, is basically a crash course in branding. You learn very quickly how to present yourself online, especially on platforms like Instagram. From there, I moved into sales and the world of B2B. I figured, if I could thrive in sales, I could do just about anything. And then, something happened. At my last corporate job, they asked me to start posting on LinkedIn as a “thought leader.” I had only ever used the platform to look for jobs. I had no idea how to show up on LinkedIn, much less how to build a personal brand on it. That’s when I turned to AI. Together, we created a seven-page brand strategy doc — like a marketing plan, but for me. I had no idea how much it would change everything. Why Gen Z Should Be Building Personal Brands A lot of people underestimate just how digitally fluent Gen Z is. We’ve been branding ourselves — consciously or not — since we were 13 on Instagram. But, LinkedIn always felt a little off-limits. Too corporate. Too buttoned-up. That changed when I started spending real time on the platform — not just scrolling, but actually creating. I found other Gen Z creators who were killing it — speaking at conferences, working remotely, running...

Attribution is garbage, says this email expert. (Plus, 3 reasons Jay's a loser.) “Email is the only marketing channel that offers an equal playing field for all marketers,” says Jay Schwedelson. With email marketing, your brand’s message has just as much chance of being viewed as Apple’s, or Google’s, or . Today’s master is here to help you not waste that chance. He’s recognized as one of the foremost experts in email marketing. His website, SubjectLine.com, is ranked in the top 1% of sites worldwide. His marketing podcast regularly lands in the top 5 in the U.S. He founded GURU Media Hub, is the president and CEO of Outcome Media, and, oh yeah, he’s also an adjunct professor at the University of Florida. (Whew!) Which is to say… y’all, I believe him. Jay Schwedelson Founder, SubjectLine.com; Host, Try This, Not That! For Marketers Only! Fun fact: Jay's never missed a season of any show in the Bachelor Franchise. The Bachelorette, Golden Bachelor, Bachelor in Paradise, you name it. Claim to fame: Did you see the list in the intro?! Ok, one more: His tool has tested over 15 MILLION subject lines. Lesson 1: Think of the inbox like a social scroll. “Your email database is the most valuable thing in your company,” Schwedelson says. “ Email is the only form of marketing that exists on the planet that at any given moment you can communicate with your entire audience.” So, how does...

Main Character Energy: What Black Panther Can Teach You About Inclusive Marketing “Inclusive marketing is all about brands acknowledging the many ways that people are different,” says this marketing master. Her voice drops to a conspiratorial tone. “And this is the very important part: Choosing which identities you’re going to serve.” Also important (to this Marvel fan, anyway): What does inclusive marketing have to do with the … MCU? Meet the Master Name: Sonia Thompson, Founder, Inclusion & Marketing Job: Thompson consults with brands that want to use inclusive marketing to grow their business Lesson 1: Toss out your checklist. I can barely make myself breakfast without a checklist, but Thompson’s got me convinced to throw them out when it comes to inclusive marketing. As a marketer, you have to choose which identities your product or service is serving, “and that’s where a lot of people are nervous,” Thompson says. “Sometimes people take a checkbox approach — like, ‘let’s get everybody in there.’” But inclusive marketing doesn’t mean “marketing to everybody.” She gives an example of a recent commercial with a woman in a wheelchair. “You can’t see her face, and there’s no speaking role — she’s just there.” Your reaction might be, “There’s someone with disabilities in the commercial. It’s inclusive!” But Thompson says that wheelchair users weren’t this brand’s target audience, and she cautions: “All representation isn’t created equal.” If you’re checking identity boxes instead of thoughtfully choosing your audience(s) and thinking about their...

AI Agents Today: How Google Gemini, Stream Realtime & Claude are Rewriting Marketing I’ve spent decades analyzing shifts in marketing, but the rise of AI agents is the most disruptive one yet. These systems are quickly taking over the user journey — but unlike humans, they evaluate structured data, analyze backend specifications, and make decisions in milliseconds. Major players are already taking note and adapting. For example, Adobe recently introduced AI agents that brands can use to help consumers navigate through their websites. Businesses can then enable personalized marketing based on real-time user behavior and unique customer attributes. From a practical perspective, however, what does it actually look like when AI agents take over key stages of the user journey? And, what does that mean for marketers? To find out, I put three leading AI agent-powered tools to the test by assigning them real marketing tasks. Here's what happened and what every marketer needs to do next. What are AI agents, and why are they important in marketing? AI agents are autonomous systems that research, analyze, and take action on behalf of users. Unlike traditional AI-powered tools that assist with isolated tasks, AI agents actively manage workflows, interact with software, and execute complex processes — without direct human input. In marketing, these agents are quickly becoming the new gatekeepers, deciding which brands, products, and services get surfaced and used. Instead of persuading consumers directly with creative campaigns or paid advertising, marketers must now optimize for AI-driven decision-making. So,...

Reddit's Growth Advisor on Finding Your Vertical-Specific SEO Strategy Once upon a time, SEO was just SEO. (Cue Mr. Incredible meme.) Whether you were a billion-dollar national brand or a teen with a Spice Girls Tumblr, you played the same game: Trying to get your page in those ten blue links. Now, two marketers might not even be playing the SEO game on the same field, let alone with the same rules. So how do they hope to win? If you’re in SEO, today’s master needs no introduction. If you’re not, all you need to know is that he’s done SEO for more big brands than you have fingers to count them. Kevin Indig Growth Advisor for Hims, Toast, Reddit, Dropbox & more Claim to fame: Doubling organic traffic at G2, growing Shopify's traffic by over 75% in 12 months, or standing up Ramp's organic traffic. Of course, for any of those accomplishments, Kevin acknowledges he can't take credit alone but gives it to a whole team of talented people. Fun Fact: He used to be a club DJ in a former life and played gigs in front of thousands of people. He also competed in powerlifting and weightlifting competitions. Lesson 1: Find your vertical-specific strategy. These days, the type of search you perform can lead to a very different experience. A product search might bring you to Google Shopping, while an informational search brings up an AI Overview. That is, if...

Did HubSpot Really Lose 80% of Blog Traffic? Here’s What Actually Happened — and What It Means for Marketers Earlier this year, HubSpot went viral — and not exactly in a good way. A few companies posted data suggesting that we had lost 80% of our blog traffic. Overnight, the news was all over X and LinkedIn. As marketers ourselves, we know better than anyone that hot takes drive clicks. But, what actually happened to our traffic? Have we really reached the end of SEO as we know it? And is this really the downfall of HubSpot’s core strategy? As one of the people who built HubSpot’s SEO strategy from the ground up, I’d like to think I can offer a bit more of a nuanced perspective. And while I’d never begrudge our fellow content creators jumping aboard the latest hot take bandwagon, in this case, I’d argue that the reality is a bit more complex than social media might have you think. That’s why I wrote this post: Not just to set the record straight (spoilers: no, the end of HubSpot is not nigh) but also to help marketers understand the very real challenges that today’s AI-powered search ecosystem poses. I’ll also share the steps marketers can take to meet those challenges and come out ahead. What Actually Happened to HubSpot’s Traffic Let’s start with what actually happened. There are three important pieces to the traffic puzzle that the clickbait headlines and apocalyptic posts have (by and...

How TikTok, Canva, & Other Top Marketing Teams Outperform the Rest Imagine trying to describe a giraffe to someone whose never seen one. Maybe I'd say something like this: “Well, it has brown patches that look a little like puzzle pieces; a long, 6-foot-tall neck, and skinny legs.” This description is close enough, sure, but it doesn't quite capture the sensation of seeing one in real life. Which is how I feel about high-performing marketing teams: Hard to describe, but easy to spot. The best way to improve, in any sport or category, is by learning from the best. So I‘ve uncovered the seven surprising ways top-performing marketing teams are winning in 2025, based on HubSpot’s 2025 State of Marketing report — and why others are missing the mark. Plus, keep reading to hear from marketers at TikTok and Canva at how they incorporate these lessons into their own workflow. 1. High-performing teams will focus on value-aligned brand content. In 2024, roughly 40% of marketers focused on their customer's experience with their brand. This year, they're doubling down on these efforts, with almost one-fourth of marketers investing in content that reflects their brand values. Why? Because we've seen younger audiences in particular prefer value-driven marketing — and many marketers are more interested than ever in reaching Gen Z and Millennial consumers. Consider Patagonia's “Unfashionable” ad, which launched in April 2024. The video goes against typical marketing best practices by actively asking consumers to stop buying so much...