Hubspot x Zoho CRM: Which AI CRM is the best?

AI has evolved from being a mere feature to becoming the driving force behind more intelligent pipelines, quicker decision-making, and enhanced customer relationships.

Today, CRM platforms are competing on the depth of AI integration throughout every interaction, offering everything from predictive insights to automated workflows.

While both Hubspot and Zoho CRM provide intelligent sales assistance, their levels of AI sophistication, ease of use, and overall business impact differ greatly. For teams that prefer a straightforward approach over complex and cluttered dashboards, folk delivers robust AI integration, enabling timely follow-ups and insightful analysis from calls and emails. It represents the most powerful application of AI within a CRM.

Why AI Integration Matters?

AI elevates CRMs from mere static databases to dynamic sales assistants. No longer must representatives sift through contacts or draft follow-up messages; AI now automates critical actions, forecasts outcomes, and instantly enriches data.

• Faster decisions. AI identifies which leads to prioritize based on intent signals and deal velocity.
• Smarter outreach. Tools provide suggested message templates, optimal timing, and can even analyze tone and sentiment.
• Cleaner data. Say goodbye to manual entry; AI automatically fills in missing information and flags duplicates or outdated records.
• Sales forecasting. Predictive models enable teams to identify pipeline risks before they arise.
• B2B data enrichment. AI gathers company size, job titles, LinkedIn profiles, and contact information to instantly complete lead records.
• AI-powered sequences. Personalized cold emails are generated and scheduled automatically based on deal stage, persona, or interaction history.

With AI deeply integrated into a CRM, sales representatives can focus less on administrative tasks and more on actual selling. This distinction is what sets apart a good CRM from one that truly drives revenue!

What is Hubspot?

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HubSpot's Breeze AI suite integrates generative copilot tools across its Marketing, Sales, and Service Hubs. Breeze Copilot can draft emails, social media posts, and blog content in a matter of seconds, while Breeze Intelligence enhances predictive lead scoring, forecasting, and data enrichment—all within your CRM. With Agents for Content, Customer, and Social, routine tasks such as note-taking, follow-ups, and report generation are automated. Additionally, ChatSpot’s conversational interface allows you to query your database using plain English, providing instant insights without any need to switch contexts.

What is Zoho CRM?

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Zoho’s Zia serves as an integrated AI assistant, allowing you to chat or speak for immediate CRM updates. You can request reports, edit records, or create tasks without navigating through complex menus. Behind the scenes, Zia provides dynamic deal-win predictions, anomaly detection, and churn forecasting, helping to maintain a healthy pipeline. It enriches records from email signatures, flags competitor mentions in real-time, and recommends workflow automations based on your team's activities. Using a custom Prediction Builder, you can easily create tailored AI models for any module—no coding skills required.

Feature comparison of Hubspot and Zoho CRM

AI Follow-ups

HubSpot Copilot quickly drafts your follow-up emails by extracting context from recent calls, notes, and CRM records. You receive suggested subject lines, engaging opening hooks, and effective CTAs directly in your sequence editor—just adjust the tone and hit send. It also optimizes the send time for maximum engagement, ensuring you never miss an opportunity. Additionally, for conditional actions like “send this if the prospect doesn’t open,” you can integrate Workflow AI Actions or Zapier for advanced multi-step logic.

Zia utilizes Workflow Rules to streamline your follow-up tasks. After configuring triggers (such as deal stage changes or task completions), Zia monitors which follow-up actions yield the best results and can automatically generate tasks or send notifications when it's time to reconnect. Furthermore, Zia’s “Best Time to Contact” feature evaluates past engagement to recommend the ideal timing for your calls or emails. For more complex multi-step branching beyond the built-in workflows, you can connect with Zoho Flow or Zapier.

Automated Contact Enrichment

When a new lead arrives in your inbox, Breeze Intelligence immediately matches it against a database of over 200 million profiles, auto-filling essential details such as job title, company, phone number, and website—eliminating the need for manual imports. This ensures your lists remain accurate, current, and primed for outreach. For specialized data like technographics or funding rounds, you can easily integrate third-party enrichers like Clearbit through the App Marketplace. It's a seamless data hygiene process that keeps your sales efforts focused.

Zoho’s built-in Zia Data Enrichment provides key insights by filling in company size, industry, key contacts, and financials through comparisons with public records. To obtain additional firmographics or technographics not covered by Zia, simply install marketplace extensions such as Clearbit or InsideView. Once connected, these tools auto-populate your selected fields in real time, eliminating the hassle of manual lookups or CSV imports.

Smart Fields

Simply instruct Copilot to “build a 5-step outreach for [your persona],” and it will provide a comprehensive sequence—including subject lines, body copy, and send cadences—tailored to the deal stage and engagement history. Within minutes, you’ll have templates ready to send that feel personally crafted. Just drop them into Sales Hub and let Workflow AI Actions automatically trigger the next steps based on opens, clicks, or property changes. It’s seamless full-funnel automation without the hassle of writing.

Although Zoho doesn’t refer to them as “Smart Fields,” its Conditional Layouts and Dependent Picklists allow you to display or hide form elements based on existing data—ensuring that known contacts bypass redundant questions while new leads see only relevant information. If you require AI-driven property values, Zia can automatically populate any Custom Property through data enrichment, merging rule-based logic with AI-generated insights.

AI-Powered Message & Sequence Generation

Simply tell Copilot to “build a 5-step outreach for [your persona],” and it will generate a comprehensive sequence tailored to the deal stage and engagement history, complete with subject lines, body copy, and send cadences. In just minutes, you'll have ready-to-send templates that feel authentically yours. Integrate them into Sales Hub and allow Workflow AI Actions to automatically trigger the next steps based on opens, clicks, or property changes. Experience seamless full-funnel automation without the hassle of copywriting.

With Zia for Emails, you can effortlessly prompt Zia to draft or refine your message—covering subject lines, body copy, and even tone adjustments—and receive polished email snippets in seconds. These can be saved as templates and organized into a sequence using Zoho’s workflow rules. For complete automation, link Zia-generated templates to Zoho Flow, ensuring that each step is triggered by opens, clicks, or field updates.

Next Best Action

Sales Hub’s AI-Guided Selling evaluates deal health, engagement signals, and historical win patterns to suggest your most impactful next step—be it a call reminder, sharing personalized content, or sending a nudge on LinkedIn. You can access these recommendations directly from your sales workspace or incorporate them into your pipelines and workflows. The outcome? Sales representatives will always know their next move, eliminating uncertainty and boosting their success rates.

Zia’s Next Best Experience widget also assesses deal health, engagement signals, and past win patterns to offer recommendations for your next best action—whether it's a call reminder, sharing a relevant PDF, or sending a tailored follow-up. These insights are readily available in your CRM and can seamlessly integrate into workflows, ensuring reps are always clear on their next steps.

folk CRM: The Best AI CRM

folk serves as the sales assistant that every team has always desired. It’s an integrated, proactive CRM that handles the tedious tasks, allowing sales representatives to concentrate on nurturing genuine relationships. With a commendable 4.5/5 rating on G2, folk stands out as one of the most reliable AI-powered CRMs for streamlined teams.

Crafted specifically for startups, agencies, and sales teams, folk transforms AI into a practical tool rather than an overwhelming challenge.

Extract Intel from Calls and Emails

Among Folk's standout features is its AI-driven call transcript analysis, which empowers sales and investment teams to glean crucial insights from recorded discussions. By integrating seamlessly with dialers like Ringover and Aircall, along with call recording tools such as Grain for Google Meet, users can automatically import transcripts into Folk. From there, you can create Magic Fields, a built-in AI functionality that allows you to set prompts to extract targeted information. For instance, sales teams can effortlessly gather details such as contract value, user count, decision-makers, budgets, or subsequent steps—eliminating the need for manual note-taking. Investment teams can similarly access insights like founder backgrounds, fundraising stages, or a startup's specific needs. These fields are completely customizable: just draft a prompt, map it to the transcript, and let Folk's AI take care of the rest. This results in a structured, searchable CRM that is enriched with valuable data gathered from your calls—streamlining follow-ups, qualifications, and reporting.

AI-Powered Follow-Up Reminders

folk's AI Follow-Up feature is designed to ensure that no opportunity is overlooked. This intelligent assistant, built directly into the platform, analyzes your email exchanges to determine when a follow-up is necessary. For example, if you've posed a question in an email and haven't received a response, Folk will automatically recognize the silence and remind you to follow up at the optimal time.

Moreover, it also works in the opposite direction—highlighting leads you may have forgotten or conversations that have cooled down. By reviewing past interactions, Folk assists you in prioritizing the right contacts to re-engage and advance deals. This intelligent, contextual follow-up system saves time, minimizes manual tracking, and enhances your likelihood of closing more deals.

AI Features in folk CRM Summary

• Suggested actions: Receive proactive reminders and AI recommendations based on recent activities or deal stages.
• Extract intel from calls: Utilize AI to gather next steps, decision-makers, your leads' budget, and all essential details.
• AI-generated messages: Save time with context-aware outreach suggestions tailored for each contact.
• Duplicate management: AI identifies duplicates and cleans up messy contact lists to maintain an organized CRM.

folk starts at just $20 per user per month, with a 14-day free trial available and no credit card required!

Conclusion

Both HubSpot and Zoho CRM showcase powerful AI capabilities, with HubSpot emphasizing generative tools for content creation and predictive insights, while Zoho leverages its Zia assistant for intuitive updates and analytics. However, folk stands out as a superior alternative, combining robust AI integration with features like AI-driven call analysis and smart follow-up reminders. This makes it the ideal choice for teams seeking an efficient CRM that simplifies tasks while enhancing customer engagement.

Start your 14-day free trial or book a demo today.