AI Transformation: Why Technology Isn’t the Hard Part
Every company is talking about AI.
Very few are transforming because of it.
That’s the difference Sandra Miley, Founder of MacKay Miley Consulting, explores in this episode of the Rebellious Times Podcast.
Finding an Edge in a Crowded Consulting Market
At the start of 2025, Chris Januszewski left the corporate world and founded Rebel Commerce Solutions to consult on digital marketing, without ever having worked inside a marketing agency himself. Facing a market of what he figures is a million other consultants, he went looking for a way to stand out using modern technology instead of just working harder. That search led to Bas Janssen, founder and CEO of PSEO (Programmatic SEO), and a partnership that’s now central to how Chris helps agencies and businesses grow through search. This episode of the Rebellious Times Podcast is part founder story, part look at where programmatic SEO fits as AI reshapes how people find information online.
Bas Janssen’s Path From a 35-Person Agency to Programmatic SEO
Bas started his first company 16 years ago, right after finishing school in IT and digital marketing. What began as a solo operation building websites and ecommerce stores grew to 35 people over 12 years, working with local Dutch businesses before moving into mid-market and international clients. The company reached 17th place on the Fast 50 and Bas eventually exited after crossing 2 million euros in revenue. After a period of consulting and investing on the side, he followed the AI and automation trend into SEO and content, and PSEO was born: first as service work with early clients, then, about a year ago, as its own software platform, PSEO Builder and Content Machine.
What Is Programmatic SEO, and Why It Matters Now
In Bas’s own words, programmatic SEO turns a brand’s strategy and data into hundreds of on-brand, quality-gated content items, published straight into a CMS. That matters more than it used to because search itself is splitting in two: traditional Google rankings, where performance is at least measurable, and the growing share of search happening inside LLMs like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude, where tracking what’s actually working is still an open problem. Bas points to this as one of the industry’s live challenges right now: getting close to the truth on LLM visibility when the ranking factors are constantly shifting and nowhere near fully understood.
Solving the AI Slop Problem With Quality-Gated Content
Ask an agency about AI-generated content and “AI slop” comes up fast, the fear that AI content just recycles what’s already online until search engines, and now LLMs, learn to discount it. Bas doesn’t dismiss the risk. His answer is structure: detailed content templates broken into sections, human review built into every step (research, outline, draft, images), and sourcing data competitors don’t have, original research, purchased datasets, or a brand’s own numbers. Running everything through a single prompt gets you, in his own estimate, about 10% of what a properly built system produces.
Chapters
- 0:00 Chris’s entrepreneurial journey
- 8:11 Bas’s entrepreneurial background and PSEO’s origin
- 12:08 Understanding programmatic SEO and its impact
- 14:02 Challenges in the evolving search landscape
- 16:55 Client challenges and content scaling solutions
- 21:03 AI content quality and avoiding “AI slop”
- 30:15 Working with agencies for SEO success
- 33:03 Getting started with PSEO: skills, timeline, and support
- 34:33 Which markets PSEO serves next
How PSEO Works With Agencies
PSEO runs on multi-tenant infrastructure, so an agency can white-label the platform under its own branding and domain, or stay transparent with clients about the tool, depending on preference. Bas describes the collaboration as two-way knowledge sharing: PSEO brings deep experience in both programmatic SEO and the emerging rules of LLM ranking, and agencies bring the client relationships. For agencies without in-house SEO, it opens a door to add a service they couldn’t easily offer alone.
Want a Second Opinion on Your Own Search Performance?
This conversation is exactly the kind of work Chris does at Rebel Commerce Solutions: helping agencies and founder-led businesses build growth systems around search, content, and AI, cutting through hype like “AI slop” to figure out what’s actually working. If you, or someone in your network, wants a fresh set of eyes on how a site or a client’s site is performing in search, Chris offers a free audit. Book a free 30-minute search audit or reach out directly at chris@rebelcommercesolutions.com.
Bas Janssen Links:
programmaticseo.agency
LinkedIn
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