Artificial Intelligence is already reshaping how people search for, discover, and choose their adventures. Outfitters who ignore this shift risk losing visibility to competitors and other entertainment providers who embrace it.
That’s why Zebulon is launching an Off-Season Accelerator this fall focused on AI Agents. Our six-session program is designed to help outfitters understand, experiment with, and adopt AI tools that will directly impact your 2026 season and beyond. Our goal is to help outfitters use AI to build content that speaks to AI – quickly and with little effort.
(And if you’re already a Zebulon client or Eddy member? Score! This Accelerator is automatically included in your services.)
Why Should Outfitters Care About AI Right Now?
In 2025, operators saw something strange: Google Ads budgets that once delivered consistent conversions suddenly fell flat. Here at Zebulon, we noticed this trend early and encouraged our clients to remove the cap from their ad-spend budgets. Clients who listened saw an almost instantaneous improvement, reversing the declining conversion trend to result in more paying customers than last year. (As Zeb put it, it appears Google shifted toward a “pay-to-play” model this summer. Yikes!)
Why is this? Simple: Potential outdoor adventurers are no longer just typing keywords into search bars and clinking links. They’re asking Google AI, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity questions like:
“Where’s the best rafting trip for a family near Denver?”
“Which outdoor adventure fits my group of 10 in Wisconsin?”
These AI platforms generate instant answers, pulling from sources they trust. And the reality is: if your company doesn’t appear in AI answers, you’re invisible – even if your website ranks high on traditional search and your targeted ads populate correctly.
The long and short of it is: outfitters can’t afford not to embrace AI.
What is Zebulon’s Off-Season Accelerator?
Back by popular demand, Zebulon’s off-season accelerator is a limited-time series of meetings designed to tackle next season’s challenges head-on.
This year, our Off-Season Accelerator is a guided, six-session program (Oct. 14 – Dec. 16) built specifically for outfitters ready to get their hands dirty with AI.
Instead of vague theory or hype, we’ll roll up our sleeves and put AI to work for your outfit. Each participant will:
- Experiment with the top AI platforms
- Build and train a simple AI Agent customized to their business
- Learn how to create content that AI tools pick up, trust, and recommend
- Share discoveries with a peer group of outfitters tackling similar challenges
This is not about chasing the latest shiny object or riding the coattails of AI buzz. This is about giving your outfit a durable competitive advantage in how guests find and choose their next adventure.
How Will This Help My Outfit Next Season?
AI-powered referral traffic is already converting at higher rates than traditional organic search. Why? Because when a guest sees your company recommended directly in an AI answer, they view it as the default choice. Why? Because consumers trust AI due to how it vets its sources and does the research for them, which saves them time and brain power.
Want proof that AI traffic converts better? Check out this case study by the marketing plaform Ahrefs – even though LLMs brought in just 0.5% of all traffic, that traffic accounted for over 12% of signups. There’s also this case study by Seer Interactive, that shows ChatGPT traffic converted at 15.9% compared to organic Google’s 1.76%.
By joining the Accelerator, you’ll learn how to:
- Show up in AI-generated answers that potential guests are searching
- Shift from keyword-stuffed SEO to being recognized as an authoritative, trusted source
- Turn experiments with AI into real bookings and revenue growth.
The result: more guests choosing you first, before they ever scroll past a search results page.
Bonus: Get Key Learnings from Industry Conferences
Throughout the duration of the Off-Season Accelerator (Oct. 14 – Dec. 16), the Zebulon team is confirmed to attend a whopping SIX industry conferences. All of these conferences boast agendas that are chock-full of sessions on AI and its impact on our industry. (Side note – we’re scheduled to speak at four of those six. Check out our upcoming speaking gigs here!)
Our pledge to Accelerator attendees is that we’ll gladly share our notes and learnings from the AI-oriented sessions at our industry’s conferences. You attend the accelerator, and we’ll divulge our key conference takeaways – it’s a win-win! After all, a rising tide floats all boats, right?
What Will I Learn In The Six Accelerator Sessions?
Here’s the roadmap we’ll cover together:
Session 1 – Where We Stand With AI (Oct. 14):
Discover the playing field, explore current tools, and see how AI already shapes outfitter visibility.
Session 2 – Project Creation (Oct. 28):
Clarify your goals, then start building your own AI Agent using your company’s data, reviews, and brand voice.
Session 3 – Prompt Engineering (Nov. 11):
Learn best practices for writing prompts that generate strong, usable outputs from your agent.
Session 4 – Action Plan: Craft & Curate (Nov. 25):
Share results with peers, refine your action plan, and prioritize the most achievable next steps.
Session 5 – Just Show Up (Dec. 2):
Build, publish, and evaluate your early content while discussing quick-win strategies and going after low-hanging fruit.
Session 6 – Set Yourself Up for Success (Dec. 16):
Recap, check accountability, and create a plan to keep momentum strong through 2026 and beyond.
Each session is practical, interactive, and tailored to outfitters. By the end, you won’t just “know more about AI.” You’ll already be using it to grow.
Do I Need To Be “Techy” To Benefit From This?
Not at all. One of the biggest barriers we hear is: “I don’t know where to start.” That’s exactly why this Accelerator exists.
You don’t need to pick a single perfect platform or learn coding. Instead, you’ll:
- Experiment with different tools side-by-side
- Learn from other outfitters who are also testing and sharing what works
- Focus on outcomes, not jargon
Think of the Accelerator as a collaborative workshop where a dozen-ish operators test strategies in real time. This broad swatch of distinct approaches means you’ll learn faster and avoid common missteps by seeing what’s working for others.
How Do I Know If This Is Worth My Time?
The outdoor adventure industry is already seeing disruption from AI. Guest search behavior has changed. Paid ad performance has shifted. SEO has transformed. The question isn’t if AI will affect your operation, it’s whether you’ll be ready to adapt.
This Accelerator offers:
- A concentrated, off-season time block to experiment without the chaos of high season
- A structured path (just six timely sessions), so you don’t waste time figuring out where to start
- Peer collaboration that multiplies your learning.
If you want your business to be visible in next season’s AI-driven search results, this is the place to start.
The Off-Season Accelerator on AI Agents begins October 14, 2025 and runs through December 16, 2025. Secure your spot now and set yourself up to lead, not lag, in 2026.
P.S. In case you were wondering – yes, we 100% used AI to help produce this blog. While we would never, EVER copy an AI-generated blog post verbatim … we sure do value the time-saving aspects and strategic choices of AI suggestions!
For this piece alone we used various AI tools to: record a brainstorm session, summarize external articles, locate specific questions about our accelerator in audio transcripts, confirm sources and statistics, build graphics (which was an epic fail – the only graphics we ended up publishing were handmade by Corey), compose meta descriptions, and suggest wording for when we share this piece in emails and on social media – all within our AI Agent we’ve trained specifically on Zebulon’s tone and messaging style.
Full transparency: This piece took us just over 3 hours to produce, from idea to publication, which is down from the average time of 9.5 hours it used to take Corey & Zeb to compose blogs back in 2023 (in the pre-ChatGPT era). That’s a third of the time, with arguably a much stronger impact. Not bad!
