Vaulted, a Raleigh-based marketing, design, and development agency, hosted the first Raleigh-Durham HubSpot User Group (RDU HUG) event in seven years on June 25 at 3 p.m., drawing nearly 50 registrants from across the Triangle. The virtual session, “Answer Engine Optimization: Search Changed. Did You?,” covered how AI-powered search engines select which brands to surface—and what marketers can do about it.
HubSpot User Groups are peer-led communities organized by HubSpot-approved leaders worldwide, connecting local users through shared learning and practical skill development. The RDU HUG chapter had been inactive since 2019, leaving Triangle HubSpot users without a local peer community. Vaulted was named RDU HUG leader in April 2026, with co-founders Matthew Deal and Emily Davidson tasked with rebuilding that programming.
The session walked through the mechanics behind AI answer engines — how ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews source information — and the practical steps brands can take to appear in those results. Among the data points discussed: 68% of Google searches now end without a click (SparkToro, 2024); 94% of B2B buyers use AI during the research process (6sense, 2025); and adding original statistics boosts citation likelihood by 41%, quoting named experts by 28%, and citing sources by 115% (Princeton/Georgia Tech GEO Study, ACM KDD 2024).
“It’s an exciting start — the turnout tells us there’s real pent-up demand for a HubSpot community in the Triangle,” said Matthew Deal, co-founder and CMO of Vaulted. “Search has changed more in the last 18 months than the previous decade, and the marketers who figure out how AI engines pick winners right now are going to be the ones their buyers find.”
The next RDU HUG event is planned for July 2026 as an in-person session. Programming will run quarterly, covering HubSpot platform updates, marketing and sales techniques, and actionable strategies.
HubSpot users can join the Raleigh-Durham HUG at:
events.hubspot.com/networks/events/271019 and follow the group on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/groups/8214773 for community updates.