GROW Europe 2025 had the energy and innovation that felt truly electric.
While the conference was a melting pot of insights for marketing, sales, and service teams, the overriding message echoed throughout every session: we are in a truly pivotal moment for business growth. The immediate future relies entirely on the hybrid team - AI and humans coming together to power the marketing, sales, and full customer life cycle.
Up until recently, the conversation around AI felt aspirational. We had the dream of AI capabilities, but the reality wasn't quite there (think frustration with the older ‘co-pilot’). We were asking, "wouldn't this be nice?". Skip forward just a couple of months, and that dream has become a concrete reality. Suddenly, we have powerful, functional tools like Breeze Assistant, Column Insights, and agents.
The shift is profound. We have moved from discussing potential to implementing genuine capability.
Unlocking the Customer Lifecycle
For us at BabelQuest, our focus is always customer-centric: looking at the customer life cycle from lead all the way through to customer and beyond. The speed of innovation means we can now use AI to push that lifecycle forward and make it stronger.
I’m most excited about how these advancements make inaccessible data suddenly actionable. Simple actions, like asking Breeze Assistant a question such as "what were some of the key themes in the sales last month?", can now surface massive insights. These tools are making unstructured data accessible.
But how do we ensure we capitalise on this new reality? It is not enough to simply implement the software; we must ensure its usage drives demonstrable ROI.
To truly harness this new hybrid reality, there are two foundational pillars we must nail first: Data and Adoption.
Foundation 1: Data-Driven Decision Making
The biggest challenge many organisations face is their data. It’s an ongoing struggle for a lot of people. However, without a strong data dashboard and a solid data foundation, you simply cannot leverage AI in the best way possible.
Data is the fuel that runs the machine. When we talk about Data-Driven Decision Making, we mean showcasing the power of clean data for strategic decisions. While AI tools like Column Insights or Smart Insights (which proactively analyse CRM data to identify shifts and opportunities) offer immense power, they are only as smart as the data you feed them. We need to ensure that the foundation is robust.
Foundation 2: Driving Adoption, Not Just Implementation
If data is the fuel, then user adoption is the engine. And adoption is the biggest topic I keep returning to. So many clients are struggling to get their teams to actually use these incredible tools.
Why the hesitancy? We see several barriers: you have people worried that simple actions are going to cost credits in platforms like HubSpot when they won't, or you see general reluctance and worry around what AI means for their jobs.
Breaking down these barriers is crucial. This is why we must make people realise this is a hybrid effort...a hybrid team. Digital transformation is not just about technology implementation; it is deeply intertwined with organisational culture. We must explain the "why" concept, not just the "what".
Our core focus, as recognised user adoption thought leaders, is emphasising the difference between basic onboarding and true user adoption. We need to create a culture that encourages the daily use of new platforms, aiming for a state where the platform becomes essential to the users' workflow.
We need to ensure 2026 is the year teams genuinely embrace AI, using it to power themselves up to be more efficient. That's why we will be exploring adoption extensively at our upcoming OxHub meeting (taking place on Thursday, 4th December, 2025).