Podcast Summary: Owning the Outcome Episode: Designing for a Generative Future: AI, Intelligent Interfaces, and Enterprise CX
Release Date: July 30, 2025
Host: Sarah McDevitt, Sr. Director of Partner Strategy, HubSpot
Guest: Eve Sangenito, Principal at Perficient

Introduction

In the latest episode of Owning the Outcome, host Sarah McDevitt engages in a comprehensive dialogue with Eve Sangenito, Principal at Perficient. The conversation delves into the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in shaping enterprise customer experiences (CX) and intelligent interfaces. Eve shares insights from her extensive 25-year career in marketing and consulting, highlighting how Perficient integrates AI to drive meaningful outcomes for clients across various industries.

Perficient: A Global AI-First Consultancy

Sarah McDevitt introduces Eve by highlighting Perficient’s stature as a global digital consumer consultancy with over 7,000 employees across 40 offices. Sarah emphasizes Perficient’s evolution from traditionally cautious enterprise partners to proactive leaders in the AI-driven marketplace.

Eve Sangenito elaborates on Perficient’s structure and focus areas:

"We are a global digital consultancy. So being global, we have a combination of strategists and technologists that are in regions like the US, Latin America, India, Europe... we’re AI first in our strategy and approach our business." (01:31)

Perficient organizes its services into pillars such as Strategy and Transformation, Customer Experience and Digital Marketing, Innovation and Product Development, Platforms and Technology, and Data and Intelligence, catering to industries like healthcare, financial services, and retail.

Leading AI-Driven Service Delivery

Sarah McDevitt probes into Eve’s role in service delivery and how AI is disrupting areas like SEO, paid media, and data analytics.

Eve Sangenito reflects on her marketing journey and the continuous shifts brought by digital advancements:

"We still have to be helping our clients... understand what our strategy for approaching the current landscape and how it's shifting." (02:55)

She emphasizes the pivotal role of AI in enabling real-time personalization and responsible AI usage:

"Help them imagine the possibilities of AI and how it can change the way that they go to market and also the solutions they deliver for their clients... make sure that I'm being more effective and being responsible to compliance, data privacy considerations." (04:00)

Notable Quote:

"AI is not going away. It's only going to continue to become more and more adopted and more part of what we do every day." – Eve Sangenito (07:29)

Balancing AI Hype with Practical Value

The discussion moves to the challenges of AI adoption, particularly the tension between AI hype and delivering real value.

Eve Sangenito shares a metaphor that encapsulates client perceptions:

"I'm not looking to use AI to paint me a Monet or to write me a symphony. I'm looking for it to wash my windows and clean my floors." (09:51)

She outlines how Perficient navigates varying client attitudes towards AI, from cautious adoption to innovative differentiation. Eve stresses the importance of intentional AI integration to avoid unnecessary complexity:

"Leveraging AI-enabled technologies you already have is a good way to reduce some of that complexity." (12:15)

Transformative Outcomes Through AI

Eve highlights some of the most exciting AI-driven outcomes observed at Perficient:

1. Enhanced Content Personalization:

   "Leveraging lookalike lists is having an impact on how they approach that and solve that problem." (12:46)

2. Virtual Agents Boosting Engagement:

   "Deploy and build virtual agents... significant increases in the percent of people engaging in higher value actions." (13:45)

Internally, Perficient experiences a cultural reinvigoration, with team members eagerly exploring AI possibilities:

"There's a lot of team members that are diving in to explore and experiment with new possibilities." (06:38)

Strategic Partnership with HubSpot

The conversation shifts to the evolving partnership between Perficient and HubSpot. Eve notes HubSpot’s expansion into enterprise solutions:

"The shift that we've seen in HubSpot in recent years is really expanding more in that product innovation and expanding that product innovation to more enterprise needs." (14:01)

Perficient’s roadmap involves expanding their use of HubSpot across different hubs like Sales and Service to better meet client demands:

"We're planning that as our customer demands and needs arise to expand more into some of those other hubs." (16:21)

Future Trends and Vision

Looking ahead, Eve Sangenito shares her vision for AI’s role in the next 12-18 months and beyond:

1. Generative Interfaces and Multimodal Interactions:

   "Generative interfaces where multimodal interfaces that are prompted by voice and create dynamic content based on triggers." (16:46)

2. Automated Content Supply Chains:

   "Automated content supply chain is another topic." (16:46)

3. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Autonomous Agents:

   "Artificial general intelligence, like getting closer to human intelligence and having the model self-learn continuously... autonomous agents to automate human tasks." (16:46)

Eve is particularly energized by the cultural shift and the burgeoning creativity within teams:

"Seeing so much of our business, especially our internal teams... really embrace it and start to identify new and exciting solutions." (16:46)

Final Thoughts

In closing, Sarah McDevitt and Eve Sangenito reflect on the practical benefits of AI, tying back to everyday needs:

"Sometimes I wonder can I just get certain things that are supposed to work a different way to work better?" (19:29)

Eve Sangenito concurs, highlighting the ongoing challenges and the essential role of AI in solving them:

"How do we have all this AI technology... and we still have problems with printing or something." (19:57)

Sarah wraps up by reaffirming HubSpot’s commitment to fostering meaningful partnerships within its ecosystem, emphasizing the transformative potential AI holds for enterprise solutions.

Conclusion

This episode of Owning the Outcome offers a deep dive into the strategic integration of AI within enterprise settings. Eve Sangenito’s insights underscore the importance of intentional AI adoption, balancing innovation with responsibility, and leveraging AI to enhance both internal operations and client outcomes. As AI continues to evolve, partnerships like that between Perficient and HubSpot exemplify how businesses can navigate the complex AI landscape to achieve sustained success.

Listen to the full episode here to explore more stories of bold bets, hard lessons, and breakthrough moments in the HubSpot ecosystem.