Latest / Sidekick's What Just Shipped / HubSpot Email QA agent: catch problems before you send | Shipped May 2026
Transcript
- Dana (AI host): You schedule the newsletter, and four thousand people get an email that opens with, Hi, comma. Dana (AI host): Nothing else. Rob (AI host): HubSpot now has an AI reviewer in the marketing email flow to catch that first. Rob (AI host): It's also had two names and some moving parts this year. Dana (AI host): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped. Let's sort it out. Narrator (AI voice): This is Sidekick's What Just Shipped, presented by Sidekick Strategies. Narrator (AI voice): Your hosts, Rob and Dana, are AI. Narrator (AI voice): The voices are synthetic, the research is real, and humans check every claim before it reaches you. Rob (AI host): Hi, I'm Rob. Rob (AI host): Dana and I are AI hosts, which means an AI reviewing AI-written email is basically a family reunion. Dana (AI host): I'm Dana. Dana (AI host): Today I'm playing an email marketer who sends every week and already has a pre-send checklist. Dana (AI host): So convince me. Rob (AI host): Deal. Our write-up from May 5, 2026 called this Email Quality Checks. Rob (AI host): An AI review panel inside the email editor that audits your draft before you send. Dana (AI host): What did it check? Rob (AI host): That first write-up listed spelling and grammar, spam trigger words, broken links, missing token fallbacks, date formatting, a weak first sentence, and off-brand voice. Dana (AI host): That's most of my checklist. Rob (AI host): That was the point, according to our research. Rob (AI host): Before this, a careful review meant a test send, a separate grammar tool, a spam checker, and a teammate reading the draft in Slack. Dana (AI host): And under deadline, I skip at least two of those. Rob (AI host): It also listed one newer item. Rob (AI host): A preview of how AI inbox assistants might summarize your email before someone opens it. Dana (AI host): Huh. That one isn't on my checklist. Rob (AI host): Then our September write-up added two more. Rob (AI host): A semantic check that flags contradictory claims, and a token fill rate check. Dana (AI host): Fill rate meaning what? Rob (AI host): What percentage of your selected audience actually has data for every token you used. Rob (AI host): Our research says pick your send list first, or the number will mislead you. Dana (AI host): Okay, that one's genuinely useful. And the spam check reads what, exactly? Rob (AI host): Our September write-up says subject line, preview text, and body copy. Dana (AI host): Good. Now the name thing. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's help page, updated September 16, 2026, calls it QA agent, powered by HubSpot's AI. Rob (AI host): It lists Marketing Hub Professional and Enterprise, and says HubSpot Credits are required. Dana (AI host): Credits. Of course. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's credits page says credits are only consumed when specific actions are performed, and all paid plans include some each month. Dana (AI host): How do I run it? Rob (AI host): Open a drafted marketing email. Click Review and send, Review and publish, or Review and schedule. Rob (AI host): Then in the right panel, click Run QA Agent. Dana (AI host): And what comes back? Rob (AI host): Results in Warnings and Suggestions sections. Rob (AI host): Click a check to see the full issue and a recommendation for fixing it. Dana (AI host): And after I fix things? Rob (AI host): Run it again. Rob (AI host): Our research says the panel refreshes, so you can confirm everything cleared before you schedule. Dana (AI host): Our May write-up mentioned one-click fixes, right? Rob (AI host): It did, with a before-and-after preview. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's current page describes a recommendation, and doesn't mention one-click fixes. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Hey, it's George B. Thomas from Sidekick Strategies. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Full honesty, this is my AI voice clone, made with my permission. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): A quality check can catch a broken token. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): It can't tell you why every campaign is a copy of the last one. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): Our Marketing Hub training starts with an audit of how your team actually uses Marketing Hub, then a role-based plan, so your email specialist doesn't sit through CRM training. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): And questions don't stop when a session ends. George B. Thomas (AI voice clone): It's listed under services at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Dana (AI host): Okay, Rob. Can I tune what it checks? Rob (AI host): Yes. Go to Settings, then Marketing, then Email, and open the QA Agent tab. Rob (AI host): All standard checks are on by default, and you can toggle any of them off. Dana (AI host): Is that per person? Rob (AI host): Our September write-up says it's a portal-level setting, so changes affect every user. Dana (AI host): So one person's toggle is everyone's toggle. Noted. Custom checks? Rob (AI host): Up to five. Each gets a name and a prompt describing what to look for. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's example checks whether the body or subject line mentions the recipient's name. Dana (AI host): How strict can a custom check be? Rob (AI host): You set severity to Warning or Suggestion. Rob (AI host): That tells the email's creator how much weight to give the result. Dana (AI host): What would you actually write one for? Rob (AI host): Our May write-up points to documented brand voice or compliance rules. Rob (AI host): Encode them as checks, and your standards become enforceable, not just a style guide nobody reads. Dana (AI host): Hypothetically, a check that the required legal footer line is present. That's my example, not HubSpot's. Dana (AI host): What about brand voice? Rob (AI host): HubSpot recommends setting up your brand voice before using QA agent. Rob (AI host): Our research adds that the voice check has nothing to compare against without it. Dana (AI host): Where does this not work? Rob (AI host): Our September write-up scopes it to batch marketing email only. Rob (AI host): Not sequences, not one-to-one sales emails, not automated workflow emails. Dana (AI host): And does it replace my test send? Rob (AI host): Our research says no. A test send still checks rendering across email clients and devices. Dana (AI host): Good. Now, what didn't line up? Rob (AI host): Three things. First, plans and cost. Both of our write-ups say Marketing Hub Starter gets it. Rob (AI host): HubSpot's page lists Professional and Enterprise, and requires credits, without saying how many per run. Dana (AI host): So check your own portal and your credit usage. Second? Rob (AI host): Severity. Our write-ups describe errors, warnings, and suggestions. HubSpot's current page only shows Warnings and Suggestions. Rob (AI host): We couldn't confirm an errors tier still exists. Dana (AI host): And third? Rob (AI host): The AI inbox summary preview. Rob (AI host): It's in our May write-up, but not in the September list, and HubSpot's page doesn't list its standard checks. Rob (AI host): So we can't confirm it's still there. Dana (AI host): Fine. Here's my Monday as the weekly sender. Dana (AI host): Set up brand voice first. Dana (AI host): Then open the QA Agent tab and read every standard check before anyone toggles one off. Dana (AI host): Write one custom check for the mistake your team makes most, as a Warning. Rob (AI host): And run it on next week's newsletter, with the real send list selected. Dana (AI host): Then do the test send anyway. Rob (AI host): That's HubSpot's email QA agent, the tool formerly known as Email Quality Checks. Dana (AI host): Our sources are listed on the HubSpot Updates page at Sidekick Strategies dot com. Rob (AI host): Thanks for joining us on Sidekick's What Just Shipped. Dana (AI host): Hi, comma. Never again. Narrator (AI voice): Sidekick's What Just Shipped is presented by Sidekick Strategies, with AI hosts Rob and Dana and AI-generated music. Narrator (AI voice): We're independent, and not affiliated with HubSpot. Find our research at Sidekick Strategies dot com.