Practical AI wins: creative and small-business work

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AI is either the end of agencies… or the biggest opportunity we've had since the internet. Most agree it's the second one.

Agencies that are winning right now are combining SEO, GEO, AEO, and LLM optimization so they show up everywhere decisions are being made. They're using AI to increase leverage, not replace thinking. And they're restructuring their teams around strategy, insight, and proprietary data instead of repetitive task work.

Today's featured guest will discuss why SEO isn't dead (it just grew up), the biggest mistake agencies are making with AI, how to 10x output without adding headcount, and why your unique data is the unfair advantage that separates you from every other agency prompting ChatGPT and hoping for magic.

Terry Zelen is the founder of Zelen Communications, a 35-year-old agency that pivoted aggressively into AI over the last three years. He's helping clients win visibility across both search engines and large language models (LLMs) and even building AI tools internally to reduce hallucinations and improve accuracy.

Terry has a degree in marine biology, so marketing wasn't the master plan. After college, he tried breaking into the creative world with zero portfolio and got laughed out of the room; until one person gave him a shot. He worked for free, proved himself, connected with a freelance rep, and slowly worked his way up through the agency ranks.

He eventually transitioned from freelancer to agency owner by acquiring his own accounts and building relationships locally in Tampa.

Fast forward three decades and now he's helping clients navigate AI, LLM visibility, and what modern SEO really looks like.

In this episode, we'll discuss:

• Why SEO is more complicated now, but agencies willing to adapt can still win

• How LLM visibility will win you business

• AI: The greatest leverage small businesses have ever had

• Building an AI consensus engine

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SEO Is Not Dead. It's Just Way More Complicated

There's a lot of noise right now around "SEO is dead" or "zero-click internet." But that's an oversimplification.

SEO isn't going away. It's evolving.

Today, it's not just SEO. It's:

• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization)

• AEO (Answer Engine Optimization)

• Local SEO

• EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust)

• Search intent

In other words, visibility is the game. Not just ranking in Google, but showing up in LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

Terry points out that while snippets and AI-generated summaries are increasing, people still want to verify sources. They're not buying a couch because an LLM told them it's the best. They'll still visit sites, compare options, and validate credibility.

Backlinks, structured content, schema, quality. It all still matters.

What's different is that now you're playing the game with Google and the LLMs.

How LLM Visibility Actually Wins Business

This isn't theoretical.

Terry shared a story of a client who builds modular classroom buildings. A school district searched for "best mobile building producer in Florida" and the client showed up in a snippet. That visibility led directly to a new contract.

So you're no longer optimizing just for rankings. You're optimizing to be the referenced authority when AI generates an answer.

That means you better have structured content, clear positioning, backlinks, authority signals, and presence on surfaces LLMs scrape (including platforms like Reddit, though that's evolving).

The agencies that understand this shift can bolt on new services like AI SEO or GEO and, in some cases, significantly increase revenue.

But there's a catch.

This space is evolving fast. What works today might not work next quarter. That's why Terry avoids gray-hat tactics and focuses on fundamentals.

AI Is the Greatest Leverage Small Agencies Have Ever Had

Terry believes this might be the most exciting time ever for small agencies because AI has eliminated barriers that used to require massive budgets.

When a small restaurant client wanted a red snapper on a black background for their website, stock photography didn't cut it and real shoot would've required a diver, photographer, cooperative fish and a significant budget.

Instead, they used Midjourney to create the image. Then they animated it so the fins and gills subtly moved. The client was blown away.

For a small restaurant, this level of visual production used to be impossible. Now it's affordable and scalable.

That's the opportunity.

Agencies can deliver higher-quality creative, faster, and at lower cost if they know how to use the tools.

A Very Real Fear for Future Marketers

Terry regularly speaks to marketing students who are worried AI will take their jobs. What he tells them is that AI won't take your job, but someone who knows how to use AI will.

The key is not blind reliance. It's intelligent leverage.

AI is excellent at:

• Research

• Proposal drafting

• Competitive analysis

• First drafts of content

• Summarizing data

What used to take weeks can now take hours. That frees your team from repetitive, dreaded tasks and allows them to focus on strategy, creativity, and client impact.

But there's a danger in over-reliance. Too many agencies are slapping "AI" on everything without adding original thinking or proprietary data.

Your edge isn't that you use AI. Your edge is your data.

Every agency has unique client data, performance metrics, positioning, and experience. When you combine that with AI, that's where real leverage happens.

Building a Consensus Engine to Reduce AI Hallucinations

One of the more advanced things Terry is experimenting with is what he calls a "consensus engine."

The problem with LLMs is that they're probabilistic, not deterministic. Ask the same question twice and you'll get two slightly different answers. They also hallucinate.

To combat this, Terry built a workflow using N8N (a Zapier-like automation tool) that runs content through multiple LLMs. One writes it. Another critiques it. The final output must pass both systems before it's considered valid.

If they disagree, it's sent back through with adjusted parameters.

He's also exploring how different LLMs perform best in different roles:

• Perplexity for real-time research

• ChatGPT for writing

• Claude for programming

Instead of treating AI as one tool, he's assembling a stack of specialized tools.

That mindset shift, thinking like a systems architect instead of a prompt typist, is what separates surface-level AI use from strategic advantage.

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