5 Side Hustles You Can Start Today With AI

Artificial intelligence can be a significant income source for people who choose a smart side hustle. AI may still have a long way to go with some tasks, but with others, it can increase productivity and results. And there are a number of companies looking to take advantage of those benefits. The best AI-driven side hustles use the technology as a great equalizer. Small business owners, particularly of established businesses, often use AI in a limited fashion, if at all, says Peter Hansen, director of research and policy analysis with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). Those founders value and emphasize the human connection to their customers. But even if they don’t use it, they recognize AI can help in other areas. Many of those owners don’t have the time to learn the ins and outs of various AI systems. And even companies that are using AI are often not taking full advantage of it. That creates an opening for side hustles that center around AI. “More than three-quarters of businesses already using AI report higher productivity, yet most are still applying it to a narrow set of tasks,” says Simon Worsfold, head of data communications at Intuit QuickBooks, which puts out a monthly Small Business Index exploring market trends. “What is emerging is a large, underserved layer of advisory, implementation, and training services that small businesses need in order to scale their use of AI,” he says. Here are five ideas for AI-focused side hustles that could be lucrative—or even become the foundation of a full-time business. AI Consultant This is a side hustle with multiple branches. Some people are well suited to help people or businesses integrate AI with their calendar, notes, and local files. Others can develop workflow audits that review how a company’s employees work to discover repetitive tasks that the AI could handle. Rates for an AI consultant range from $150–350 per hour for independent workers and people running it as a side hustle. Those can jump as high as $600 per hour if you convert this side hustle into a full-time company. AI Researcher To stay competitive, businesses need to know what their competitors are doing and what’s trending in their industry. That data can be remarkably complex, however, and not every founder or CEO has the time to do the deep dive it requires. Side hustle operators with strong AI skills can use the technology to filter the data into easily digested insights, then sell those as reports, newsletters, or direct subscriptions. You’ll need to carefully identify the best source material and be sure to double check the output, since AI’s comprehension is still flawed. “The AI doesn’t give the correct answer all the time,” says Shaun Ghavami, Founder of 10XBNB, a side hustle-turned-business that now oversees a portfolio of over $100 million of short-term property rentals. “The real skill is in prompting.” GEO (AI Search) Optimization For the past two decades, businesses have hired specialists to help them rank high on search results pages. While that’s still valuable placement, smart business owners are also looking into how they can be among the frequently-cited sources for AI search results. People with a combination of AI and content knowhow can create a side hustle specializing in this. You’ll teach companies the best ways to refine their content and meta tags and improve readability for large language models. If you have the tools to measure analytics, such as Alli AI, Frase, and MarketMuse, you have a better chance of establishing a recurring relationship with those clients, increasing your income and establishing a base should you want to make this more than a side hustle. Content Repurposing (Clipping) Both content creators and businesses regularly churn out videos and stories as promotional tools, or in an effort to be seen as thought leadership experts. Quite often, though, that content needs to be pared down before they’re posted on everything from TikTok to LinkedIn to Instagram. And that takes time, which the companies and content creators may not have to spare. As an AI content repurposing expert, you can transform the long-form content into digestible bites to widen the potential audience in a much shorter period of time. Use tools like CapCut, Canva, and ChatGPT to effortlessly pick and highlight the most relevant parts. Create AI Microtools AI can be intimidating to many people who don’t know where to start, especially when it comes to creating agents or GPTs that are relevant to their needs. A smart side hustle operator, though, knows that you don’t have to be an expert to create your own AI tools. Sites like Gumloop let you visually build workflows that can be run at large scale. You’ll use a drag and drop template that lets you create workflows that do just about anything, from running a search engine optimization audit of a Website to a ranking system for job applicants. You can either custom create those for clients or build general purpose tools and sell them on Etsy or some other marketplace. BY CHRIS MORRIS @MORRISATLARGE