HubSpot’s February Essential Updates

Turn HubSpot’s latest releases into real workflow wins, shift your AI stack past GPT‐4o, keep LinkedIn engagement real, adapt to Google and Demand Gen’s AI targeting.

Author

Code Peddle
February 24, 2026

Hey there, Digital Marketing Rockstars! 🎸

Manmeet here, this week is all about signal over noise: tighter HubSpot releases, cleaner AI model lineups, more authentic LinkedIn engagement, smarter Google audiences, and AI-assisted SEO reporting that still needs a human at the wheel. The theme: let automation do the heavy lifting, but keep your hands on strategy and quality.

In today's email:

1. Key HubSpot February product releases you should actually care about. 📈
2. OpenAI retires GPT‑4o as users move to GPT‑5.x. 🤖
3. LinkedIn’s crackdown on fake engagement pods.💡
4. Google’s AI-driven “lookalike” suggestions in Demand Gen. 👀
5. Google Search Console’s new AI-powered reporting configuration. 🌐

Marketing Automation

HubSpot Product Releases – What You Need to Know

This February’s HubSpot product updates are aimed at making everyday work faster, smarter, and more connected across marketing, sales, service, and ops. New features focus on stronger automation, cleaner CRM data control, richer reporting (including social), and expanded Marketplace integrations so teams can streamline workflows without stitching together extra tools. The big picture: fewer manual steps, more context in the tools you already live in, and better ways to plug AI and third-party apps into your existing processes.

Our Hot Take:
Don’t try to adopt everything at once. Pick one update per team automation for ops, reporting for marketing, data controls for RevOps and define a clear “before and after” workflow. Document the change, train the team, and measure time saved or quality gained over a month. Once that sticks, move to the next feature instead of letting a long release list turn into shelfware.

Content Marketing

OpenAI Retires GPT‑4o As Users Move To GPT‑5

OpenAI has officially retired GPT‑4o and several older models from the ChatGPT interface as users increasingly adopt GPT‑5.1 and GPT‑5.2, which offer better personality, creativity, and customization. With only around 0.1% of daily users still relying on GPT‑4o, OpenAI is consolidating efforts around newer models while keeping older options accessible via API for now.

Our Hot Take:
For content and marketing workflows, build around capabilities, not model nostalgia. Standardise on one or two “house” models for most use cases, define where you’ll accept experimental outputs, and keep a simple change log so you know when performance shifts are due to model updates versus your own prompts. Think like you’re managing a small creative team whose tools evolve every quarter.

Social Media Marketing / PPC

LinkedIn Cracks Down On Fake Engagement

LinkedIn is rolling out stronger measures to limit fake engagement from pods and automated commenting tools. Automated, low-quality comments can now be removed from the default “Most Relevant” view, may have their visibility restricted beyond the commenter’s immediate network, and repeat offenders risk having their accounts limited or restricted entirely. The result: vanity engagement becomes less effective, and posts with real conversations and thoughtful responses are more likely to win reach.

Our Hot Take:
If you’ve been tempted by pods or automation, now is the time to pull the plug. Shift your LinkedIn strategy toward fewer, stronger posts with meaningful comments from your team and customers. Encourage subject-matter experts to add 1–2 substantive comments per day on relevant posts in your space. Those genuine interactions will outlast any bot-driven spike.

Google Shifts Demand Gen Lookalikes To AI-Driven Suggestions

Starting March 2026, Google Ads will convert Demand Gen Lookalike audiences into AI-powered “suggestions” rather than strict similarity-based targeting. Your seed audience and chosen reach level will guide who the system targets, but the algorithm can expand beyond traditional lookalike boundaries to find additional converters, with legacy strict Lookalikes only available on request.

Our Hot Take:
Treat lookalikes less like fences and more like starting points. Make sure your seed lists are high-quality (recent converters, high LTV segments) and then judge performance on incremental lift, not how “pure” the audience feels. Use audience insights and placement reports to sanity-check where expansion is going, and pair this flexibility with tight creative and conversion tracking so you’re still steering toward profitable outcomes.

SEO

Google Search Console Adds AI-Powered Reporting Configuration

Google has fully rolled out its AI-powered configuration feature in Search Console’s Performance report, allowing you to describe the analysis you want in natural language and have filters, metrics, and comparisons auto-configured. The assistant can set up views around clicks, impressions, CTR, and position, but it’s limited to configuration (not exports or sorting) and can still misinterpret requests, so SEOs must review and refine the generated setups.

Our Hot Take:
Use the AI configuration as a fast way to prototype new reports, especially for non-technical teammates, but never skip the “sanity-check” step. After the AI builds a view, confirm the date range, query/page filters, device and country scopes, and comparison logic before you present insights. When you land on a useful view, save it as a standard report so you’re not relying on AI to recreate the same analysis every time.

Recommended Readings

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Here’s what you can expect:

  • Lead Generation and Conversion

  • Email Marketing Performance

  • Website and Content Analytics

  • Lead Management and Nurturing

  • Customer Relationship Management

Tip of the Week

This week, pick one place where AI is already in your stack and add a “human gate.” That could mean reviewing one new HubSpot feature before rollout, defining approval rules for GPT‑5.x content, or adding a quick QA pass to your new AI-built Search Console reports. AI should accelerate your work, not quietly reset your standards.💡

Summary:

Here’s your quick recap:

  • Marketing Automation: Focus on one HubSpot February update per team and turn it into a concrete workflow upgrade with measurable impact. 📈

  • Content: Align on newer GPT‑5.x models based on output quality and reliability, not brand familiarity with older versions. 🤖

  • Social: Lean into authentic LinkedIn conversations; pods and auto-comments are now more risk than reward.💡

  • PPC: Prepare for Demand Gen audiences to behave more like guided broad targeting and optimise around seed quality, creative, and conversion tracking. 👀

  • SEO: Let Search Console’s AI handle setup, but keep humans responsible for validation, interpretation, and final decisions. 🌐

Meme of the Week