The most impactful HubSpot updates from January 2026 focus on removing friction from everyday HubSpot work. Here’s what stood out to us.
HubSpot kicked off 2026 with a batch of updates that feel intentionally practical. January’s releases focused on smoothing out the parts of HubSpot teams touch every day: workflows, lifecycle stages, segmentation, reporting and service operations.
Many of these updates solve long-standing pain points that previously required workarounds, extra workflows or “we’ll fix it later” notes.
Below are the 14 January updates we think are most worth your time, organized into what managers will care about most (visibility, performance, execution) and what admins will appreciate (control, automation, cleaner systems).
Updates managers will love
- Predicted email engagement in segments
- Subtasks
- Lifecycle stage conditional property logic
- Improved spam visibility & management in forms
- Assign Customer Agent to third-party SMS, Slack, Instagram, Telegram, TikTok channels
- Send an email to create a ticket in help desk
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Updates HubSpot admins will love
- Set default property values
- Business days support for workflow delays
- Find & replace user references in workflows
- Support multiple main teams for full functionality
- Company lifecycle stage properties
- Email workflows
- Remove specific values from multi-checkbox properties with the workflows “Edit record” action
- Custom and cross-object reports on CRM records
HubSpot updates managers shouldn’t miss
Know how engaged a segment is before you hit send
What’s new: HubSpot can now predict how a segment is likely to engage with your emails before you send them. This prediction is based on the historical engagement of contacts in that segment compared to engagement across your portal overall.
Each segment is labeled with one of four engagement levels: High, Medium, Low, Unknown (not enough data yet).
You’ll see this insight directly within the segment, giving you a quick read on how that audience typically performs.
How it helps you
Instead of building an email, sending it and then discovering engagement was weak, managers can now sanity-check segments ahead of time and adjust strategy accordingly. A “low” engagement prediction doesn’t mean “don’t send,” but it does signal that the message, timing, or goal may need to change. It may also indicate that you’d be better off prioritizing another portion of your audience.
Furthermore, this tool is valuable for setting expectations internally. Knowing a segment’s trends, high or low engagement, gives marketing teams better context when planning campaigns and gives stakeholders clearer expectations around results.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Marketing Hub
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: All Tiers
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Break work into realistic steps with subtasks
What’s new: HubSpot now supports subtasks, allowing you to break a single task into smaller, nested steps within projects, deal records, service records and Gantt views.
How it helps you
This brings HubSpot’s task management closer to how teams actually work. Subtasks reduce the need for external project tools and make it easier to track progress on complex work like:
- Onboarding.
- Implementations.
- Repeatable delivery processes.
Status: Private Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Starter
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Prompt for the right information when lifecycle stages change
What’s new: You can now use lifecycle stage as a trigger for conditional properties, allowing HubSpot to surface (and optionally require) specific fields when a lifecycle stage is updated manually.
How it helps you
This creates cleaner handoffs and more consistent data without adding process overhead. When someone moves a contact or company into a new lifecycle stage, HubSpot can immediately prompt for the context your team needs, like:
- Qualification notes.
- Product interest.
- Decision-maker status.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Starter
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See and manage form spam more clearly
What’s new: HubSpot has made its existing spam detection tools easier to see and manage within forms, including a dedicated Spam tab on each form and expanded spam visibility in the Forms “Analyze” view.
How it helps you
This update doesn’t change how HubSpot detects spam, but it makes what’s already happening far more transparent. Without digging through banners or hunting for the right screen, you can quickly:
- See which forms are attracting spam.
- Review flagged submissions.
- Release anything that was incorrectly filtered.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: All Tiers
Let Customer Agent handle conversations across more channels
What’s new: HubSpot’s AI Customer Agent can now engage in conversations across a wider range of third-party channels, including SMS, Slack, Instagram, Telegram and TikTok. And with API-based integrations, its reach can extend even further to virtually any channel where conversations are happening.
How it helps you
This expands where AI support can show up without forcing customers into a single channel. Whether someone reaches out via social, messaging apps or community tools, Customer Agent can step in consistently, helping teams respond faster, extend coverage, and reduce manual load while keeping conversations centralized in HubSpot.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Sales & Service Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional, Enterprise (uses HubSpot credits)
Create tickets by sending an email from help desk
What’s new: Service teams can now create a ticket by sending an email directly from the help desk, without needing an existing ticket first.
How it helps you
This removes a common workflow break for service teams. When you need to proactively email a customer or start a support conversation, you can do it in one step, keeping the entire interaction tracked as a ticket without jumping between tools or screens.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Service
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional, Enterprise
HubSpot updates admins shouldn’t miss
Set default values for properties
What’s new: You can now define default values for most HubSpot property types, automatically pre-filling them whenever a new record is created.
How it helps you
Default values reduce manual cleanup and help standardize data at the moment records enter your CRM. Common use cases include:
- Defaulting lead status to New
- Setting a standard priority level for leads or tickets
- Pre-filling typical deal amounts or next steps
- Defaulting number properties to 0
- Setting boolean (single checkbox) properties to false instead of leaving them blank
Used thoughtfully, this helps keep records more consistent without relying on workflows or post-creation fixes.
Status: Public Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: All Tiers
Run workflow delays on business days
What’s new: Workflow delay actions can now be set to count business days only, instead of all calendar days.
How it helps you
This removes the guesswork from time-based automation. Follow-ups, reminders, and internal actions now respect weekends when this option is toggled on in a delay step, so a “3-day delay” actually means three working days, without extra conditions or scheduling workarounds.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Data
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
Quickly replace users referenced in workflows
What’s new: You can now find all workflows where a specific user is referenced and replace that user across all workflows in one place instead of editing workflows individually.
How it helps you
This is a huge win for user offboarding and role changes. Instead of hunting through workflows to update notifications, assignments, or routing rules tied to a former employee, admins can cleanly swap users and keep automation running without disruption.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Data
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
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Allow users to receive assignments across multiple teams
What’s new: HubSpot now supports users being full members of multiple teams, allowing them to receive round robin assignments and team-based routing across all teams they belong to.
How it helps you
This removes a long-standing limitation where only a user’s “primary” team could be used for assignments. For admins managing shared resources, pod models or cross-functional coverage, this makes routing more accurate and eliminates awkward workarounds to ensure the right people can receive records.
Status: Private Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
Report on company lifecycle movement over time
What’s new: HubSpot now tracks date entered, date exited, and time spent in each lifecycle stage for companies, with historical data automatically backfilled.
How it helps you
This unlocks cleaner, more reliable reporting at the company level without custom properties and workflows. You can now report on when companies became MQLs, SQLs or customers (even if they’ve since moved on), making it much easier to analyze funnel movement, conversion timing and lifecycle trends over time.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
Trigger workflows from one-to-one emails
What’s new: HubSpot now supports email-based workflows triggered by one-to-one emails sent or received through the CRM, inbox extensions, or sequences (not marketing emails).
How it helps you
This opens up a new automation layer around everyday sales and service communication. You can use this feature to:
- Timestamp the last one-to-one email sent or received in separate properties.
- Update lead or ticket status based on email activity.
- Trigger tasks or notifications when emails are opened or clicked multiple times.
- Surface follow-up tasks when incoming emails contain specific terms like “unsubscribe” or competitor mentions.
Status: Private Beta
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Data
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
Remove specific values from multi-checkbox properties in workflows
What’s new: Workflows can now remove individual values from multi-checkbox properties, instead of clearing the entire field.
How it helps you
This eliminates one of the most frustrating workflow workarounds in HubSpot. You can now cleanly remove a single value when conditions change. Without rebuilding the entire property through complex branches, you can easily do things like:
- Removing a product from an “Active Products” property when a subscription ends.
- Clearing risk flags as situations improve.
- Removing expired trials.
- Updating course enrollment once a course is completed.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: Marketing, Sales, Service, Data
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
Add custom and cross-object reports directly to CRM records
What’s new: You can now embed custom and cross-object reports directly on CRM record pages, not just single-object reports.
How it helps you
This brings richer context into the record view without forcing teams to jump into dashboards. For example, you can:
- See website activity or marketing event interactions for associated contacts directly on a company record.
- View ticket volume tied to custom objects like machines or equipment.
- Understand how sales activity is distributed across contacts within a deal or company.
Status: Live
Applicable HubSpot Hubs: All Hubs
Applicable HubSpot Tiers: Professional
Final takeaways: January 2026 HubSpot updates
Across workflows, segmentation, lifecycle tracking and reporting, HubSpot focused on removing friction that teams have learned to work around.
If you’re deciding where to focus first:
- Managers: Look at predicted segment engagement, lifecycle-based prompts, and expanded Customer Agent channels to improve execution and response without adding complexity.
- Admins: Prioritize default property values, business-day workflow delays, cleaner checkbox automation, and record-level reporting to keep your portal consistent, scalable, and easier to maintain.
Taken together, these updates make HubSpot promote less busywork, fewer workarounds, and better signals in the places teams rely on every day.
The post The HubSpot updates you don’t want to miss from January 2026 appeared first on MarTech.