The HubSpot Forecast: 5 Big Predictions for 2026

If 2025 was the year HubSpot officially became an AI-first platform, then 2026 is going to be the year it rewires its customers' brains to accept (and take advantage of) that AI functionality. 

We are no longer going to be simply "using" the CRM. Instead, we will be actively populating it with digital workers. The line between software and service is blurring, and the mid-market tech stack is about to get much leaner.

Here are my 5 predictions for HubSpot in 2026:

For the last decade, the App Marketplace was about integration (connecting Tool A to Tool B so data could flow between them) or functionality (allowing your team to do things the native tools can't).

In 2026, the marketplace will shift its focus to action. We are already seeing the early signs with the Breeze Agent Marketplace. But today, the Agent Marketplace is pretty sparce, with just a few that have been built by HubSpot.

I anticipate that next year, HubSpot will open up that marketplace to third-party devs, which will unleash a wave of new AI capabilities within HubSpot. Pretty soon "installing an app" will feel outdated. Instead, you will "hire" an Agent. 

Even in the areas where third-party apps continue to exist, imagine a self-configuring integration, using agentic AI to understand your HubSpot setup and your needs in order to set up an integration for you. 

Segment, Hightouch, and RudderStack have long held the crown for customer data infrastructure. But with the maturity of Data Hub (launched late last year), HubSpot is closing the door on standalone Customer Data Platforms for the mid-market.

For a company with 200–500 employees, paying $40k+ annually for a separate CDP to clean and route data into HubSpot no longer makes financial sense. Data Hub’s "same object" architecture means your data doesn't need to be synced. It just lives there.

We will likely see a wave of CDP consolidation where mid-market RevOps teams cancel their external data pipelines in favor of Data Hub’s native innovative governance and enrichment tools. 

That also opens up a lot of opportunity for HubSpot solutions partners who specialize in migrations from CDPs to HubSpot. 

The era of selling purely onboarding and implementation services is ending. Smaller onboardings are already getting comodotized and the price war is being won by companies using tools that can deploy a standardized portal setups in hours, not weeks or months. 

On the other hand, HubSpot's AI functionality is expanding faster than customers can keep up with. Most companies don't have dedicated employees with the skills to set up and manage a team of AI agents that operate within the CRM. 

"AI Ops" will become a standard department within Diamond and Elite partner agencies, replacing the traditional "Admin-for-Hire" model. Expect to see retainers for Agent setup and optimization. Partners will charge to monitor the performance of your Prospecting and Customer Agents, tweaking their prompts, updating their knowledge bases, and ensuring they stay on brand.

The best partners will help customers expand AI across their tech stack, integrating tools like Zapier, Clay, and AskElephant to build AI into core business processes. 

Currently, the Breeze Prospecting Agent is good at researching leads and drafting email sequences. But sales is still a conversation game. Right now, the agent hands off the lead when it's time to call.

In 2026, HubSpot will likely integrate native Voice AI capabilities into the Prospecting Agent. Imagine an agent that doesn't just email, but can navigate phone trees, leave human-sounding voicemails, or even handle initial qualification calls to book meetings for human reps.

The cold call could be the next frontier for Breeze, likely starting with outbound voicemail drops and inbound routing before moving to full conversation.

As the platform grows more complex with Breeze, Smart CRM, and about 100 product updates each week, user adoption is becoming the biggest bottleneck. RevOps teams are tired of maintaining separate Google Docs or Looms that never get watched to teach reps how to use the portal.

HubSpot already acquired Tango. Now it needs a version of it embedded directly in the UI.

This will allow Admins to pin "How-To" cards, process documentation, and mandatory checklists directly onto Deal Records and Custom Objects, ensuring that the human workforce knows exactly how to work alongside their new AI counterparts.

If these predictions hold true, 2026 marks the official end of the "Franken-stack" - that messy web of disconnected tools held together by duct-tape and hope. The winning strategy for next year isn't about buying more software or building more complex integrations. It is about trusting the platform to do the heavy lifting so your team can get back to the one thing AI still can't do: building genuine, high-value human relationships.