AI Side Hustles: What You Need to Know About Making Money with AI

You’ve probably heard that you can make money with AI bots or earn hundreds to thousands of dollars in passive income from various AI side hustles. But if you have a skeptical mind, you’re probably wondering if it’s actually possible to use AI to make money—and if so, how lucrative it really is.

These days, it’s incredibly difficult to access real, honest information about what you can expect from an AI side hustle. You’ll find plenty of people claiming to have success with lazy side hustles that allow them to earn $1,000+ per day using AI. But how much of it is really true?

Can you really use AI to generate a passive income?

Yes, it is possible to make money using ChatGPT, AI bots, and other AI tools. But these AI side hustles aren’t anywhere near as “automated” as you might think.

Even if you find a way to leverage AI so that a machine is doing all the hard work for you, you have to be the one to orchestrate the project. We spoke to Rafal Reyzer, a content creator and educator who specializes in helping other creators integrate AI into their workflow, and he pointed out that if you’re actually going to succeed in making money from an AI side hustle, you’ll need industry knowledge, and you’ll have to do your research.

For example, to make a profit from a sports supplement website you’ve built using AI-generated content, you need in-depth knowledge of the sports nutrition industry, its key players, influencers, the type of content that’s trending, and the top supplements available on the market. “Without this expertise, it will be nearly impossible to break through the crowded marketplace with your AI-generated content,” Reyzer told us.

All this is to say you should be skeptical of anyone claiming you can use AI to get rich quick with zero effort. At least some of the info spread by people offering personal finance advice is either misleading or untrue. For a certain percentage, the end goal is simply to grow their audience and earn more from their real side hustle—be it YouTubing, blogging, consulting, or selling online courses.

You can find hundreds of “automated” AI side hustles discussed online. These AI money-making strategies largely follow the same process: taking a traditional side hustle and using AI for every task that can possibly be automated. The idea is to allow you to make an easy, nearly-passive income with minimal work.

While these side hustles don’t really “run themselves” (you still need to come up with a plan, implement AI tools, and orchestrate/oversee AI’s production), they’ve attracted a lot of attention as being easy ways to potentially make a lot of money using AI. Pretty much all of these AI side hustle ideas fall into one of three main categories.

1. Monetizing AI-produced content

One popular branch of AI side hustles involves using AI to generate content in various formats, such as written, graphic, video, or audio content. Once you’ve produced something that’s in demand, there are numerous ways to monetize it.

Traditional monetization strategies include display advertising (e.g., enabling ads on your blog or YouTube channel) and affiliate marketing (promoting a third-party product to earn a commission when somebody makes a purchase after clicking on your affiliate link). You’ll also have specialized options depending on the platform you’re using.

Examples of AI Content You Can Monetize

In the context of using AI to create websites and media channels that generate an income, Reyzer believes that AI is a helpful tool, but he warns against relying on it too heavily. Despite rapid advancements in AI technology, low quality and errors are persistent concerns.

What’s more, plenty of people can still spot AI-generated products. “Since everyone is jumping on the AI bandwagon, it’s more important than ever to infuse your content with a human touch, and create high-quality, original content in the crowded digital content space,” Reyzer said.

2. AI-powered drop servicing

Drop servicing is a business model where you get paid to provide a service, but instead of doing the work yourself, you have someone else do it for a lower rate. You then keep the difference in the payment amount as a profit.

In the traditional sense, drop servicing involves outsourcing labor to other people. However, you can also outsource the work to AI.

Of course, there are certain issues with AI drop servicing. For starters, you can’t really count on an AI bot to do a great job on its own without human supervision. Secondly, there’s debate over the ethics of outsourcing your freelance work to AI, especially if you’re claiming full credit for the services you’re providing. But this doesn’t stop a lot of people from doing it.

Examples of AI Freelance Services

3. Selling AI-generated products

These AI side hustles are perhaps the most straightforward. They all involve using AI tools to design digital products that you can then sell online. These are often products traditionally created by artists and can be based in various media, such as graphic art, music, writing, or film.

Examples of AI Products You Can Sell

If you take a look at all the most-talked-about AI side hustles, the majority involve using AI to create products or provide services typically offered by creative or technically skilled professionals. In the table below, we’ve broken down what AI systems can currently do and what tools you can use to leverage AI’s capabilities to generate an income.

What AI Can Do

The side hustles and AI tools mentioned here are by no means comprehensive. AI technology is booming, and as new products hit the market, the possibilities for what you can achieve continue to expand.

We’ve already talked about supposedly “automated” AI side hustles, where AI does pretty much all the work for you. But what we haven’t touched on yet are the various other ways you can make money using AI tools—be it by leveraging AI in your current work or starting a new side hustle that is centered around AI.

Using AI as a professional tool

Regardless of what industry you work in, there are going to be plenty of ways you can integrate AI software into your workflow to optimize your efficiency and productivity, make your job easier, and ultimately earn more money.

Here are a few examples of ways you can use AI in your work:

• Data entry: AI bots can help you record and store information like sales, inventory, and customer info, saving you time and resources if you’re operating a business. They can even help you create Excel formulas to automate data entry and analysis processes.
• Scheduling: AI tools can help you build a roadmap to achieve your short-term and long-term goals and keep track of your current tasks.
• Writing emails: If you’re an independent business owner, freelancer, or company employee who needs to handle a lot of email communications, then AI services like ChatGPT can save you a lot of time by drafting emails for you.
• Idea generation: ChatGPT and other AI systems are great at coming up with ideas. If you’re feeling stuck or need inspiration, AI can help you get the ball rolling and organize your thoughts.
• Conducting research: Even though the internet provides access to enormous quantities of information, finding a specific source or piece of information can be difficult and time-consuming. AI systems can gather and synthesize information more quickly and easily than any one person could do during a manual search.
• Writing code: For web and app developers, chat bots like ChatGPT can save you time drafting new code to input into an application.
• Convert information: AI tools excel at transforming information from one format into another. As just a couple of examples, AI systems can turn written text into a visual format (e.g., a table, chart, or graphic) or transcribe audio input into written text to help you better analyze information.
• Summarizing information: Save time reading books or research papers by getting an AI bot to summarize the information for you and cherry-pick information that’s most relevant to a particular task or goal.
• Predictive analytics: AI-based predictive analytics tools help businesses in various industries optimize their marketing strategy. You can use these AI tools to identify your target market and predict future purchase trends.

Some task automation strategies will be more useful to you than others, depending on your profession. And bear in mind that you don’t necessarily need AI to achieve the same results. There are also non-AI automation tools you can use, like Zapier.

If you do use AI tools to automate tasks, remember that you’ll still need to have a well-defined idea of what you want to achieve and provide clear instructions to get the results you’re after.

Teaching others how to use AI

Do you already have a solid grasp of how AI tools work and how to use them to improve your workflow at your current job? Then you may be able to get paid to share your knowledge and expertise with other people working in your field.

In this case, you’d be marketing educational content to other professionals in your industry. You could sell courses on your website or educational platforms like Skillshare or Udemy, offer workshops or seminars, or offer private coaching sessions.

One strategy that Reyzer said is trending right now is offering live courses, where you give students the opportunity to ask questions in a live online setting. Consider scheduling live courses for a specific date and for a smaller audience.

Pro tips for selling online AI courses

Reyzer is currently selling a course on how to use AI in content marketing, and he walked us through the steps you should take to get started:

1. Research: You can’t teach without having ample knowledge yourself. Reyzer spent more than 100 hours researching the best use cases for artificial intelligence and marketing and finding the best tools currently available on the market.
2. Outline the course: Create a course outline that provides as much value as possible to potential clients.
3. Create the course: Once you have your course all planned out, record it and then edit it. You may need to buy or rent recording equipment and set up a recording space. Reyzer recorded and edited all the content for his course in his home studio.
4. Find a platform to sell your course: You have plenty of options for where you sell your course. You can use an online learning platform or do what Reyzer did and use your own website. He started by creating a landing page for the course using LeadPages and then connected it to a learning management system (CheckoutJoy for checkout, Stripe for payments, and Thinkific for course hosting).
5. Market your course: The only way to actually sell your course is to cultivate interest among your target audience. For his marketing strategy, Reyzer created a PDF with links to top AI-powered marketing tools to attract email subscribers. He then created a series of email subscription pop ups using Popupsmart and integrated these with an email automation he created in Brevo. In addition to organic marketing strategies, you might consider developing a social media content strategy to further promote your course.

The reason Reyzer chose to develop his AI marketing course is that he’s anticipating a huge demand for re-skilling in the area of digital marketing in the future, with old marketing workflows becoming obsolete and marketers needing to learn how to use new tools to stay competitive.

AI consulting

Companies hire AI consultants to help them develop and implement strategies for incorporating AI systems into their existing business operations. Since it’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to use AI if they want to remain competitive, AI consultancy services are currently in pretty high demand.

Notably, you usually need to have a pretty in-depth knowledge of how AI works (or at least a solid grasp of AI-powered workflows) to be an AI consultant. Some companies may expect you to have a background in computer science, data science, or a similar technical field, so it’s not necessarily a side hustle anyone can do.

Before jumping headlong into an AI side hustle—or even using ChatGPT while on the clock—there are a couple of considerations you should take into account.

Ethics of profiting from AI

There’s ongoing debate surrounding the subject of whether we should even be using AI to complete labor tasks. Ethical concerns surrounding the use of generative AI generally fall into the following categories:

• Exploitation of creators: Generative AI models like ChatGPT are trained using huge bodies of information, often produced by creators or artists without their consent. This infringes on copyright, and although some companies are making efforts to ethically source their training data for AI models, this isn’t always the case.
• Limiting job availability: As you can see from all the different AI side hustle possibilities, AI is capable of doing a lot of the tasks that businesses would traditionally employ staff or freelancers to do. Now, these businesses can save money by using AI instead, which leaves fewer job opportunities for creators.
• Enslaving AI: While many would say we’re a long way off from achieving sentient artificial intelligence systems (if we ever will), humanity’s understanding of the nature of consciousness is admittedly limited. Some people suggest that now is the time to consider the ethical implications of using an AI system—which is designed to process information and adapt just as a human does—to perform unpaid labor tasks.

Before you start an AI-powered side hustle, it’s worth considering these ethical issues and forming your own opinions on when and how people should use AI to make money.

To Reyzer, producing content with the help of AI and then monetizing it is ethically justifiable if the methods used for content creation are clearly disclosed to the other party. “If both parties agree that the content may be generated with the use of AI, then everything is fine,” he said. However, he clarified that he believes that a human editor needs to be involved in just about any AI-assisted content creation project for the content to have any meaningful value in the digital ecosystem.

Despite disagreement over what should be considered “ethical AI usage,” many people (Reyzer included) agree that a line needs to be drawn somewhere. “It’s crucial for companies to develop an AI-usage policy so the AI tools are used ethically, and responsibly, especially when it comes to handling sensitive customer data,” he said.

Disclosing your use of AI to employers

Findings from a 2023 Salesforce survey of more than 14,000 workers across 14 countries indicate that 28% of workers use generative AI at work—among these users, 64% have passed off generative AI work as their own. 1

Businesses know that freelancers have access to AI tools, and this can lead to some distrust in freelancer/employer relationships. From the perspective of many businesses, they’re paying for original work that they assume takes a certain amount of time to produce, and they may feel cheated if they’re given an AI product instead without their knowledge.

Some freelancing platforms have taken steps to address this issue while still giving workers opportunities to get gigs. For example, Fiverr now has a separate part of their online marketplace dedicated to AI freelancing services.

Plenty of businesses support the use of AI tools or are willing to hire an AI creator because it often means quicker and cheaper production. For everyone’s sake, it’s best to be transparent upfront about your use of AI when offering freelance services or using AI in the workplace.

Backlash against AI use

Even if you are able to make money from a fully automated AI side hustle, beware that the successful results you get at first may not last. AI is still in its infancy, and many businesses and decision-makers haven’t yet established a framework for regulating its use. Some are already beginning to take steps to discourage many automated AI side hustles.

A good example is if you’re running a website purely filled with AI-generated content. Google is always updating its algorithm to ensure that only high-quality content makes it into the top search results, and they’ve made changes to address AI usage and penalize unhelpful automated content. With lower search rankings, your profits from an AI website will fall.

Similarly, Reyzer pointed out that popular content monetization platforms like YouTube now require creators to disclose if uploaded content was created using AI. It’s possible that other platforms will also introduce policies designed to penalize or discourage AI content generation in the years to come.

Reyzer’s view is that search engines still prefer content created by humans, and they can easily detect content written by AI. “To rank content in search engines, it’s crucial to include original research, a personal perspective, real-life stories, expertise, and experience,” he said. “It’s not possible to include these things purely with the use of AI. Therefore, it’s crucial to add a human touch to all of the content that is being released by a company or an individual.”

New developments in AI technology have certainly offered plenty of benefits to independent workers and those hoping to start a new side hustle, including greater efficiency, reduced workload, and just generally easier work.

However, if you’re hoping to start a fully automated AI side hustle, be warned—if it sounds too good to be true, there’s a good chance that it is. AI won’t be able to do everything for you without supervision or intervention. If it can, then you may not be able to profit from it in the long run.

If you’re feeling the fear from uncertainty about how AI is going to affect your future employment, then understanding what AI can do and how you can use it responsibly in your work is a good way to ensure you’ll continue earning money in the age of AI. Staying on top of AI trends and developing relevant skills to meet changing demands can preserve or even enhance your employability.