Isabelle and I attended Hubspot's Inbound in Boston this year. Some of the conferences we heard were truly insightful. With 2025 being the (obvious) year of AI Agent, Darmesh Shah's speech was very much expected.
You have the full speech below.
But here are our insights about this must-listen speech.
Darmesh's speech focused on recent developments in AI and the introduction of AI agents. That being said, Darmesh don't think chatbots will replace websites.
He started with an overview of recent AI advancements: Noticing that AI models are getting bigger, better, and faster. Focusing on the introduction of multimodal capabilities (text, image, audio, video).
Introduction of AI agents: Darmesh definition of AI Agent is to be remembered:
"Software that uses AI and tools to accomplish multi-step goals".
He obviously introduced us to the launch of his Agent.ai platform, which he described as a "professional network for AI agents".
He than shared examples of AI agents: The Conversion rate optimizer agent ; The Company research agent or the Executive briefing agent. Among many others.
He introduced his Agent Builder: Which is a tool allowing anyone to create AI agents without coding skills. Basically Drag-and-drop interface for building agents. A gem!!
Darmesh than shared his vision for the future: He compared AI agents as digital teammates and funnily playing with the famous quote from Apple: "There's an app for that", he made a: "There's an agent for that" as its vision.
He emphasized on AI amplifying human capabilities rather than replacing humans.
He ended up sharing how HubSpot's approach to AI presenting it as a smart CRM with built-in AI capabilities, focusing on AI-infused engagement apps. Wrapping up by explaining how Hubspot's ambition is to create an Agent ecosystem.
Overall, Darmesh consistently emphasized the role of AI as a tool to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them.
Enjoy!!
Thanks for the summary. That video/presentation was really great, so easy to follow. I look forward to all of us using AI agents soon to help us.
That being said, I am surprised to not see any shopping agents yet. The only one on Agent.aiĀ is FlyerScan, and it's limited at best. The amount of money that could be made by those agents (for brands or those who offer such agents) could be significant.
Here's an example. In the back of my mind, I have thought having an additional small freezer in my house would be useful. As the need is not really urgent, and other things have been more important to spend my money on, it has just remained a vague sense. In a Whatsapp group I'm on, someone posted about things they were selling that they no longer needed. A freezer was one of those. I thought to myself that maybe this would be a great time to jump in and do it, since it was at a great price.
My concerns were about ensuring it worked and fit in the space I had. I know nothing about freezers. All I had to go on was the picture of the used freezer in the post which also included a screenshot of the item being sold new at a big box store. So there I was late one evening having gotten home very late from work, tired, but wanting to see if I could score a deal by telling the person I wanted the freezer (all because I happened to randomly see that post when I got home).
So I set out to do research on that freezer, at past 10 pm (which is past my bedtime), lest I miss out on the great deal, exhaustion the next day from lack of sleep be damned! I didn't know anything about functionality, manual defrost vs. frost-free, about cubic feet capacity, pros and cons of upright vs. chest and garage-ready, etc.
I used an LLM to help in my research which included links to a few options. But then I had to review the specs, see if the measurements worked for my space, read the reviews, look at the different brands and price points and types along with their pros and cons. An hour later, I was even more tired, and I was still waiting for the reply I had sent a few hours earlier to the seller (which came in the next day - the photo of the model number confirmed it was way too big for my space).
As I finally staggered into bed knowing I would be tired thr next day due to my researchhaving encroachedon my bedtime, I put a reminder note in my app that manages my to do list to check to see if the freezer I found online will go on sale during the next President's Day sale or Memorial Day sale, as I will only pull the trigger on the not-entirely-essential-but-convenient purchase if I get a really good deal. I was even thinking that it would be great if I could find one on Craig's List or Facebook Marketplace or such, but then was discouraged by the thought of having to navigate scammers, and spending the time scouring those sites again and again until something meeting my criteria for specs and price point arose. The prospect of losing more precious sleep from needing to do that research to find what I wanted for weeks to come was not thrilling (and I prefer to do other things with my time rather than shop for what I want at the price I want).
Now, imagine a shopping assistant AI agent that I could ask what I need to be mindful of when buying a freezer, telling it why I want one so that it could find one that would work best for my needs (large, movable shelves instead of small, fixed shelves, etc.). Maybe even upload a picture of my space.
And then I would tell it to scour the entirety of the web to find the best deal, both on retail store sites as well as on social media marketplaces, telling me when something met my criteria and max price. It would also include tax and shipping costs so that I didn't get excited only to see my price limit exceeded by 20-30% by such fees.
It would also give me the reliability score of the seller, if it came from a place like Craig's List, eBay, Facebook Marketplace, etc. so I could be confident I wasn't dealing with a scammer. And identify options with a guarantee or easy refund policy if something was wrong with the item/its delivery.
And then I would only have to validate the purchase and have the money come out of my account.
Maybe the agent would even have access to my calendar (why not dream big, right?) and have parameters I would have input prior regarding the best time to receive any and all deliveries, including delivery of such a big item, when I was home (e.g. Wednesdays are best but ensure a 1-hour buffer around any meetings/appointments for delivery delays that could then impact my ability to maintain my doctor's appointment, for example). And it would arrange for the best delivery window and inform me. That way I wouldn't have to think about any of the details other than deciding if thr option presented worked for me, validate thr purchase, and then go about my business until the deliver was at my door.
Essentially, that shopping agent would do what a personal assistant would do if I asked one to find me a deal on a freezer, over the coming weeks or months.
And this could be replicated with other purchases, such as finding the best shoes to match an outfit for which I uploaded a photo, or finding the most flattering outfit for my body shape, in the right size and fit in the style that I like. Or finding a new or used car that matched my criteria and price point and negotiated the best price and, if needed, the financing.
I can think of many such purchasing scenarios that such a shopping AI agent could make lives easier for, for literally billions of people on this planet. The revenue potential for such agents would be huge.
When will AI help me find my dream freezer???