5 Interesting Takeaways from INBOUND 2024

We just got back from HubSpot’s INBOUND event, where we had a booth, hosted two educational sessions, and interviewed a bunch of business, marketing, and sales leaders.

After three days of diving into discussions, exploring new tech, and just mingling with other marketers, we picked up a few interesting insights and trends:

1. We’ve gone from AI hype to seeing it work in the real world

AI was the talk of the town last year, and it still is — but in a different way.

Last year, so many AI announcements were just concepts, wireframes, or mockups — big ideas, but nothing real.

Fast forward to today. Some of these ideas have turned into reality, and now everyone’s talking about how they’ve implemented AI in their processes or launched AI-powered products or features. For example, HubSpot made a huge splash with their new suite of AI-powered tools, Breeze.

There was also a large focus on how to avoid some of the pitfalls of using AI, like when not to use it, writing better prompts to reduce hallucinations, and ways to train AI agents more effectively.

Overall, everything felt a lot more tangible with people sharing real use cases, prompt guides, and actual results.

There were 44 sessions that mentioned AI! Here are some that stood out:

• Content Marketing Reinvented: How To Win in an AI Landscape
• The AI-Powered Marketing Playbook
• Unleashing Your Marketing Team’s Potential With AI
• The Future of AI Video and Content Generation
• Chatbots, Copilots, and Agents: The Future of AI Assistants

Why is AI still such a hot topic for marketers? It’s probably because marketers are constantly under pressure to create more content with fewer resources, and AI offers a way to exponentially increase productivity just when burnout is hitting hard.

2. Content creators dominate the conversation

Wistia’s co-founder Chris Savage made an interesting observation after interviewing over 15 professionals for his podcast, Talking Too Loud, at the event: We’re at an inflection point where B2B influencer marketers are about to go mainstream.

We absolutely agree. Anything related to creators usually drew big crowds. People were eager to hear from creators themselves or brands that partner with them.

These creator-focused sessions had a pretty impressive turnout:

• Why Influencer Marketing Campaigns Succeed (and Fail)
• Debate: Creators vs Corporations: Who Makes Better Content?
• Podcasts: Melding Timeless Insights With Contemporary Ideas

It was wild to see attendees stan their favorite LinkedIn creators. It was also cool to see the event’s creator stage and podcast recording areas buzzing with activity all day. People weren’t just there to present — they were also using the space to film their own podcasts and video series.

Why is there such a huge interest in content creators? We can think of two reasons:

1. Creators have been hugely successful in B2C marketing, often paving the way for trends in B2B. Not too long ago, people questioned whether social media would work for B2B — now it’s one of the most important channels.
2. Paid ads and organic search aren’t working as well as they used to. Google updates have cut into organic traffic and now Google is pushing Reddit ahead of company pages. Also, ad budgets are under scrutiny and there’s only so much tweaking of targeting that can be done to get results. Meanwhile, creator campaigns are getting tons of views and high-quality traffic, making them a big opportunity for brands.

3. Creativity for brands is becoming more important than ever

The push toward AI and influencers created an undercurrent of conversations about the growing importance of creativity in marketing. Many people are worried about AI flattening a brand’s voice and churning out mediocre content. But as Taylor Corrado Wistia’s Senior Director of Brand mentioned during her session "Be Bold, Win Big: A Conversation on Taking Creative Risk “Creativity is a competitive advantage.” Being creative isn’t just fun but lets you stand out in a crowded feel and make the best use of a limited budget.

It feels like the pendulum is swinging away from “attribute everything, scale quick” to “not all things can be tracked and quality over quantity.” Ryan Reynolds wrapped up INBOUND by emphasizing the power of creativity in marketing — and we couldn’t agree more.

4. Events in tech are back

Let’s be real: The tech industry has faced some challenges recently — layoffs, falling stock prices, and a lot of doom-and-gloom predictions after the end of the zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) era.

We came to INBOUND wondering if it would be a ghost town with just a few engineers prompting AI chat bots. But wow, were we wrong. The event was positively bustling and there was a palpable excitement for the future.

Even though webinars, live streams, and online community groups are proliferating there is still so much value to meeting IRL. Marketers are also getting a lot more out of events by turning them into content creation opportunities.

5. Everyone’s making videos now

We filmed interviews and customer testimonials at our booth, but we were definitely not the only ones who used the event as an opportunity to create stellar videos.

Everywhere we looked, people had their cameras or phones out. They were filming themselves or each other at booths, activations, and just about every corner of the event. And brands? They were right there doing the same.

We weren’t surprised, though. Video gear has become so much more accessible over the years. Now, all you need is a smartphone to create high-quality videos, and everyone’s taking advantage of that.