We Tested HubSpot AI Blog Generator Tools in a Live User Group: Here are the Results

We’ve all been hearing plenty about how artificial intelligence is transforming marketing: enabling teams to ideate, create, and promote content more efficiently than ever before.

But have you tapped into its capabilities for your own marketing work yet? If not, why not?

Many marketers feel overwhelmed by the pace of the AI evolution — or more accurately, the AI revolution. It feels like every day brings another advanced feature in the changing landscape of LLMs, as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and more wrangle for the top spot.

It feels impossible to choose with confidence.

The good news is that HubSpot has been integrating powerful AI tools right into the software, making it easy to leverage AI without the learning curve or added costs of standalone AI software.

We hosted an Appleton HubSpot User Group (HUG) in November 2023 introducing HubSpot’s AI tools, and then revisited them again in our March 2024 meetup — and major improvements are already obvious.

Streamlining Content Creation with HubSpot AI

In our latest HUG, I worked through an in-depth demo showing how marketers can use HubSpot’s AI-powered features to streamline content creation and promotion. 

Key takeaway: HubSpot is executing on marketers’ AI needs by streamlining its use, intuitively, right inside the platform.

So if you’re among the marketers who are overwhelmed by the idea of getting started with AI, you’ll appreciate the productivity-focused tools HubSpot’s building in. You don’t have to worry about making the right decision. If you have HubSpot, you have generative AI, ready to use across various stages of content development and creation.

AI-Assisted Content Creation: Ideation and Planning

Helpful content starts with human ideation and planning — but HubSpot’s AI assistant and/or the free ChatSpot tool to brainstorm blog topics and angles simply by providing a few key details about your goals. In my example, I asked, “What blog articles could I write to help promote a conference we’re hosting soon?” 

I got an instant list of ideas. With topic direction from the AI, you get past writer's block right away, and kick off a new piece of content painlessly.

Generating Blog Outlines and Drafts

From there, creating a blog outline and first draft was a breeze in HubSpot’s blog post generator tool. I pasted in the info about promoting a B2B marketing and sales conference, and the generator gave me:

• Sample titles
• Meta description
• Subheadings serving as an outline
• Full first draft

You'll absolutely need to edit the output to align with your brand voice, but in our demo, the generator gave me a solid foundation to work from. So much easier than a blank page. And you have full control to tweak everything. I showed how easy it is to edit, add, delete, and rearrange the section headers until the outline hits all the key points. 

Then, based on that framework, the generator tool fleshes out the body content for each section — and then it’s time for review, revision, and refinement.

Iterating and Refining with AI

HubSpot makes iterating intuitive. You just highlight any text, sentence or paragraph, click the ✨ icon, and prompt as needed to:

• Rewrite
• Expand
• Shorten
• Adjust the tone

One current limitation: the AI couldn’t convert a paragraph into a bulleted list. But I could ask it to make a list of bullets on the topic, which was easy to format. AI may not be perfect, but it collaborates with you as an adaptable partner. And getting used to working with it now will make it easier for you to adapt as AI capabilities keep expanding.

Promote Content with AI-Powered Social Publishing

Finally, once your blog post is complete, HubSpot helps you promote it through AI-assisted social publishing. I popped over to the social media tool, pasted in the blog URL, and asked the AI to generate promotional copy. 

It drafted engaging teaser text which I could edit, expand on, or shorten. The tool can even customize versions for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. With a few tweaks, it’s quick and easy to optimize messaging for each channel.

The Accessible Future of AI in Marketing

Right now, the bottom line is this: HubSpot is doing thoughtful work to incorporate AI tools into the platform in a way that supports the real-world content workflow of busy marketing teams.

You get the benefits of AI efficiency and inspiration without needing to master prompts in a separate tool. It's all right there where you already execute most of your content marketing.

So if exploring AI for marketing has felt daunting, HubSpot offers an accessible on-ramp. Their integrated approach guides you to get comfortable and build confidence harnessing AI’s potential for faster ideation, streamlined content creation, and smarter promotion. We were confident demonstrating it in a live event, so why not learn how in your daily workflows?

ALSO LEARN ABOUT AI FOR SALES: HubSpot How-To: Using AI Tools for Sales Call Summaries & Transcripts

The future of marketing is AI-powered, and HubSpot is making it refreshingly easy for more marketers to seize the opportunities. And listen, we understand that it’s early days in this AI era; no one has all the answers. That doesn’t mean you should wait, either. We’ve created an AI resource page to get you up to speed fast.