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UNBOUND started in 2012 as INBOUND, a HubSpot user conference that drew around 2,800 marketers to a Boston ballroom in its first year. It's grown into one of the largest B2B events in North America since, pulling well over 11,000 people in person most years (this year they’ve sold out at 13,000!), plus a much bigger crowd watching online.
HubSpot renamed it UNBOUND this year, explaining that INBOUND was built around one marketing philosophy, attract, engage, delight. UNBOUND widens that out to the whole go-to-market motion, marketing, sales, service and RevOps together, with AI running through most of the agenda.
Every person and their CRM want to go and as a HubSpot Elite Partner, UNBOUND is the one week of the year where we can sit close to where HubSpot's own roadmap is actually heading, hear directly from the product teams building it, and compare notes with other partners wiring up the same tools for their own clients. We go to bring back what's genuinely usable, not just what got a big reveal on the keynote stage (although that is exciting too).
So before we fly out, I’ve managed to grab a few of the team to ask them a some questions and find out: the trend they think is overhyped, the one session they'd protect in their calendar if they could only pick one, the mid-market mistake they're tired of seeing, what would make the trip a personal win rather than just a good one for Centralise, the conversation they're hoping falls into their lap, and something they've changed their mind about in the last year.
Let’s catch-up!
The trend everyone thinks is overhyped
Sometimes huge changes within the ecosystem happen and they change the world of CRM’s, sales, marketing and ops forever, but sometimes it’s just noise. I was interested to find out what the team thinks is an overhyped trend.
Vik: "AI is the answer to everything, but if you throw it at something without actually planning it out first, you just end up with the same mess as before, only now it's automated."
Paul: "The fully autonomous AI SDR. The pitch is that an agent runs your outbound end-to-end and books meetings while you sleep. There are benefits, but not end-to-end. Most inboxes are already filled every day with generic AI emails, all with the same beginning, middle and end, some even with the em dashes. As an SDR/Growth Consultant, I believe in the personal touch on my emails and calls. I might not send a thousand emails a day, but I also don't burn bridges with 999 people a day with generic AI messaging. I have a conversation like a human at a bar."
Liv: "Trying to get all your data into HubSpot. It doesn't have to be your single source of truth. I'm all for bringing data in, but not everything needs to live in the platform. Between the number of connectors out there, Data Studio, app sync and so on, not everything has to be computed and stored inside HubSpot."
Jeremy: "AgentHub. Being able to rapidly deploy AI agents at scale doesn't fix a business's immediate need to solve its data foundation challenges."
Marie: “I think this whole hyper-personalisation at scale play… we’re all chasing this 1:1 messaging for thousands of prospects, which in one way, is absolutely the right thing to do, but it often just results in weird, uncanny valley comms that feels more like an algorithm than a genuine human connection, which is what we all really, actually want.”
The one session each of them would protect in their calendar
We’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to go to a lot of the sessions that UNBOUND are putting on, but there are some that the team would swap their most prized possession to attend. If it had to be one, which would it be….
Vik: "HubSpot CPQ in the real world. It's a fairly new tool, and I want to see how it's evolved and how much space there is for customisation."
Tom: "'From Data Strategy to AI Execution.' I've always been interested in how you turn data into useful insight, and the sticking point has usually been the time it takes to get the data into the right place. Letting AI take over that execution would help a lot. Whatever effort goes into data quality and governance to get there will be worth it."
Paul: "'The Commercial Cost of AI Sameness,' with Rachel Ousley from Canva. My whole approach to outbound is to be different and actually resonate with the person or company I'm reaching out to. Everyone has the same AI tools now, so inboxes are filling up with competent outbound that all sounds the same, and I've been working the opposite way on purpose. It's filed as a marketing session, but she's put real research behind it, 1,415 marketing leaders and over 3,500 consumers, and the lesson carries straight into how I prospect. If sameness has a measurable cost, how do I stand out? Above all, how do I just be a normal person having a chat?"
Liv: "'Inside HubSpot's Open Platform vision for the agent era.' I'm keen to learn where we, as partners, can use these tools to make our lives easier, and where we can upskill to better support clients. It feels like it's opening up some genuinely exciting opportunities to build creative solutions and spend less time on the busy work."
Jeremy: "'Evolve Your HubSpot Stack to Close the Context Gap,' for improving prospecting efficiency."
Marie: “I think Community Over Ads: Growing Without a Marketing Budget would be one I would protect. I’m hoping that we will deep dive into better ways of utilising HubSpot in ways that I hadn’t thought of before…”
The mistake they're hoping gets addressed
We spend a lot of time helping clients fix the same operational hurdles, but there are some recurring mistakes that always seem to creep into the mid-market. I was interested to find out what the team thinks is the biggest mistake they’re hoping gets addressed this year.
Vik: "Bad data practices, and how to fix them. Most importantly, who should own it."
Paul: "Buying a new shiny tool before fixing the foundations. The promise is always that some AI tool will solve everything and keep working while you're not, and in theory that's great. These tools genuinely can save time and cut the busy work out of the day. But you need solid data foundations for any of that to work properly and reach its potential."
Liv: "Trying to activate AI tools without a solid grip on their data first. It's not clean, it's not structured, and there aren't unique identifiers across systems. Companies want to go the whole nine yards without the patience, or the understanding, to get their data in shape first."
Jeremy: "Not customising their data model in the CRM to give sales extra capability from ERP data points, product and inventory information, for example."
What would make it a personal win
Obviously it’s important to come back to the U.K. with new insights, ideas and even processes for Centralise and our clients, but this is an incredible opportunity personally too. I wanted to know what the team are hoping to come out of UNBOUND with on an individual level…
Vik: "Meeting people who can show me some genuinely cool, technical, custom things they've built with HubSpot."
Tom: "I've been here since the start of Centralise, and it's so cool to see everything grow the way it has. I don't think I'd have believed, two years in, that I'd be heading out on my first intercontinental business trip with a group like this. It's going to be a lot of fun, and a proper milestone."
Liv: "Being awed by some of the cool things other solution and app partners are creating, coming away inspired and feeling creative. And honestly, just looking around at the team and thinking: how did we get here, together, so quickly?"
Jeremy: "Connecting with like-minded businesses, and launching our new brand ethos, which I believe is the next evolution in the partner ecosystem."
Marie: “Bumping into Suni Williams!! AS WELL AS meeting other people in the same role and industry as us and seeing what amazing things they’re doing! What an amazing opportunity to be inspired!”
The conversation they're hoping to have
There will be plenty of conversations happening, whether that be at the stand, during luncheons and sessions or out and about, around Boston. But what are we hoping to have an opportunity to discuss?
Vik: "Same as before: meeting people who can show me something properly custom they've built in HubSpot."
Tom: "I love talking about dashboards. I think they're underused, and can be so informative when they're set up properly. I'd love to talk to someone else who's interested. Most of what I know about dashboarding, I've learned in a vacuum, so seeing how someone else approaches the same problems would be invaluable."
Liv: "I'd love to hear some of the weird and wonderful use cases people have found for agents. Interesting problems I can get my teeth into and try to solve."
Marie: “I would really love to hear how other marketers are using AI; less on an automation or agents level and more on the creative and ideation side, but whilst still utilising HubSpot to its full potential.”
Something they've changed their mind about
We will never claim to know everything and we’re excited to learn something new. But more importantly, we’re always open to being challenged on our opinions on the way something works, or the best practice. When you want the very best for your clients, the only right answer is the one that solves the challenges they’re having. So below is some of the things that the team have changed or had their mind changed on:
Tom: "I'm learning that I love going down rabbit holes with automation, and sometimes what comes out the other end works, but is far more complex than the problem needed. I'm trying to teach myself that sometimes simplicity is the answer. Is the request even a real problem to fix? Pushing back on the client is sometimes the right call."
Liv: "I used to think HubSpot wasn't a great fit for SaaS businesses. Revenue Hub has changed that for me. It's made real headway, and genuinely makes my life easier when I'm designing solutions for that kind of business."
Jeremy: "The single-source-of-truth idea has become something of a myth. I think every department in a high-performing business needs its own source of truth. The value of HubSpot, or any CRM or GTM system, is in creating a unified dataset across multiple platforms, viewed through a single lens."
Marie: "I used to think more sophisticated lead scoring was always better: more criteria, more weighting, more nuance. Now I think simpler, stage-based models with clear fit-plus-intent signals outperform the complicated ones almost every time, because people actually understand and trust them enough to act on them."
So with that, we’re heading into UNBOUND with a clear, pragmatic mindset: the team is looking past the industry hype to find genuine, usable solutions.
While the excitement for the conference is palpable - from personal milestones and networking opportunities to deep dives into custom HubSpot integrations - the core objective remains grounded; we’re united in the belief that successful implementation isn't about chasing the newest trend or "AI-first" buzzwords, but about fixing data foundations, simplifying complex models, and ensuring that tools are used to solve real human problems.
Ultimately, we’re looking to come away with more than just keynote takeaways; the team wants actionable insights that will help them build creative solutions, improve their own operational efficiency, and continue delivering the kind of straightforward, impactful results that our clients rely on and have come to know us for.