The middle class is getting squeezed. AI is accelerating it. And if you’re reading this right now, you’re either already worried about what that means for your income, or you’re ready to do something about it.*
Good. Because the people who act now are going to make a lot of money with AI. The people who wait are going to be left fighting over the scraps.
We started with zero experience in AI. No coding skills. No degree. No investors. Within a couple of years, however, we built a highly profitable AI business while helping hundreds of agencies reach six figures in record time. We’ve since grown a community of over 30,000 people all following the same blueprint, and in this post we’re handing it to you in full. By the time you finish reading, you’ll know the five AI business models that work right now, the exact three-phase roadmap from complete beginner to paying client, and the one offer that clients almost never say no to.
Let’s get into it.
How To Make Money With AI: Why This Moment Is Different
In 2024, a massive wave of companies began replacing roles with AI. According to McKinsey research, by the mid-2030s, up to a third of all jobs could be automated. No career is completely safe anymore.
The skills that kept people employed for decades are becoming outdated faster than the workforce can adapt. Furthermore, income is getting squeezed from every direction. Waiting is literally the worst thing you can do right now.
But here’s the flip side. A smaller group of people is going to ride this wave and come out as serious winners. They’ll build AI businesses, stack wealth, and develop the skills the world is desperately short of. This is not unlike the dot-com boom. The people who got in early made their fortune. Those who arrived late to SMMA and dropshipping, however, basically got the crumbs.
We are still early. That window is not going to stay open forever.
5 AI Business Models for Making Money With AI Right Now
Before we get into the roadmap, you need to understand your options. There are five main ways people are making real money with AI right now, each with different pros, cons, and earning potential. Here’s an honest breakdown of all five.
Option 1: AI Influencing
This is where you build a following around AI content, creating videos, posts, or podcasts that explain AI tools, break down news, or showcase automations. You’ve seen thousands of these creators on TikTok and Instagram constantly showing off the latest image generation tools or reporting on breaking AI news.
Your job as an AI influencer is simple: take complicated AI concepts and explain them so that anyone can understand.
You don’t need to be a genius. You just need to know a little more than your average viewer. Once you’ve got traction, the income comes from ad revenue on your content, affiliate commissions from recommending AI tools, and brand sponsorships from companies wanting to reach your audience.
Pros:
Low barrier to entry. You can start with just a phone and free software
Audience grows organically when you pick trending topics and stay consistent
Huge brand deal and commission potential as you scale
Cons:
Income is not immediate. It can take six months of consistent effort before you see real returns
Being on camera isn’t for everyone, and written routes via LinkedIn or Medium tend to grow even slower
Option 2: AI Content Creation
This is where you use AI to create content at scale. Think faceless Instagram Reels, viral TikToks, or full AI avatars reviewing products for Amazon referral fees. Tools like ChatGPT, ElevenLabs, Runway, and MidJourney allow you to generate scripts, clone voices, produce visuals, and edit the final product with almost zero human input.
Young startups are already building these workflows and running entire social channels that are basically hands-off. It’s an exciting entry point for anyone looking to make money with AI content.
Pros:
Massive reach potential across multiple platforms simultaneously
Very low costs. You’re essentially just paying for a few subscriptions
Highly scalable with the right prompt system in place
Multiple monetisation options including ads, sponsored posts, and AI UGC product videos
Cons:
Extremely competitive. Everyone is doing this, AI or not
Entirely platform-dependent. A single algorithm change or policy update could tank your channel overnight
Option 3: How To Make Money With AI Automation Agency
This is our recommended model for most people. And it’s the one that changed everything for us.
You set up AI systems that save businesses time and money, and you take either a retainer or a cut of the profits.
No coding. No development background. No tech degree required.
We figured this out back in 2023. Rather than writing a single line of code, we hooked ChatGPT up to HighLevel and had it qualifying leads for clients, and they absolutely loved it. One of our students, Aaron, had never properly opened a laptop before he started. Nevertheless, he scaled an AI agency to $130,000 by implementing AI tools into car dealerships across America. You can watch his full story here: Aaron’s $130K Case Study.
Pros:
Very low startup costs with no product to build
No tech or coding skills required to get started
Enormous demand. Businesses are sitting on dead databases, slow follow-ups, unanswered reviews, and manual tasks that AI can fix immediately
Build a template for one niche and replicate it across dozens of clients
Clients naturally want more once you’ve delivered results, creating easy upsell opportunities
Cons:
There is a learning curve. You’ll face problems you’ve never had to solve before
That said, our training exists specifically to shortcut that process and give everyone the best possible start
For a deeper look at how this works in practice, check out our post on how to start and scale an AI automation agency.
Option 4: AI Education
Once you’ve found genuine success with AI, you can package what you’ve learned into a course, ebook, or webinar series. There is huge demand for AI education right now, and consequently the profit margins are excellent.
The catch? You actually have to know what you’re talking about. This one is therefore best saved for after you’ve built a real track record with one of the other models first.
Pros:
Very high profit margins with minimal cost per sale
Scalable and easy to distribute once the content is built
Strong passive income potential over time
Cons:
Requires real, demonstrable experience before you can sell credibly
Highly competitive. You need a genuinely differentiated angle to cut through the noise
You cannot fake expertise here. A hollow product simply won’t survive
Option 5: AI SaaS (Software as a Service)
You build a software tool that solves a specific, expensive problem for businesses, then charge a monthly subscription for access. We’ve actually built a SaaS product recently called The Sales Wingman, which has been incredibly powerful for our students. Done right, customers become reliant on the software, revenue becomes predictable, and if things go really well you could sell the whole thing for a significant payout.
However, this model requires experience, an existing reputation, and significant capital to get off the ground. It’s therefore not where most beginners should start.
Pros:
Predictable recurring monthly revenue once you have customers
Extremely scalable. Once built, the cost of selling to an additional customer is almost nothing
Potential for a large exit payout if the product takes off
Cons:
Expensive and time-consuming to set up compared to running an automation agency
Any major changes to underlying AI models like OpenAI could render your product obsolete overnight
Requires an existing reputation and cash reserves that most beginners simply don’t have yet
Why an AI Agency Is the Best Way To Make Money With AI
We want to be completely straight with you.
The AI Automation Agency is the clear winner for beginners. The earning potential is higher than all four other models, while still being accessible to someone starting from absolute scratch.
With influencing or content creation, you’re not building the skills that attract the biggest deals. With an agency, on the other hand, you’re solving expensive, urgent problems for real businesses and getting paid serious money to do it.
The average business owner still has no idea what AI can do for them. That is your opportunity. You walk in as the expert, fix their dead database, their slow follow-ups, their unanswered reviews, and once you’ve solved one problem, the upsells come naturally. For a real-world example of what this looks like in a specific niche, read our breakdown on how to build a voice AI agent for a mortgage broker.
The 3-Phase Roadmap To Making Money With AI
This is the framework we teach every beginner. It’s the same path that took Aaron from never opening a laptop to $130,000.
Follow these phases in order. Skipping steps is where people get hurt.
Phase 1: Learn and Build Your AI Foundation
Most people overcomplicate this stage entirely. They convince themselves they need to learn to code, study neural network architecture, or understand AI at a PhD level before they can start.
You don’t.
The key is focused learning. Build something simple, get it working, then move on. Our free course covers your agency website, prompt engineering basics, client outreach scripts, and how to structure your pricing. We’ve made every mistake ourselves, so you don’t have to. Access the full free training and join over 18,000 students here: Join The Free Skool Community.
Phase 2: Apply Your Skills and Start Getting Results
This is where the vast majority of beginners stop dead in their tracks.
They tell themselves they’re not ready, that they don’t know enough, that they’ll wait until they feel like an expert. This is, however, the single biggest mistake you can make. The fastest way to learn is by doing.
Here is exactly how we recommend approaching your first real project:
Pick a simple project. Start with database reactivation. It’s straightforward, every business has a pile of old dead leads, and you can demonstrate results fast.
Offer to do it free, only getting paid if it works. Reach out to a local business owner through your warm network. The pitch is simple: “Let me test an AI system that reactivates your old leads for you. You don’t pay unless it works.”
Build and deploy it. It’s essentially a copy-and-paste system you tweak to suit their business. Moreover, one week of doing this teaches you more than a month of tutorials ever could.
Track your results in real time. Count how many leads replied, how many appointments were booked, and how much revenue was generated.
Turn it into a case study. Even reactivating 20 leads and closing $2,000 in sales is gold for building trust with future clients. That proof is what opens bigger doors.
For a detailed walkthrough of this exact approach, see our post on how to use AI and SMS to revive old leads.
Phase 3: Monetize With AI and Scale Your Agency
Once you’ve got a result you can show people, this is the exact offer we teach every single student to lead with.
The Offer of the Century:
“Have you got any old leads we can turn into sales using AI and SMS on a performance basis? We don’t get paid unless you get paid.”
This turns someone’s dead leads into live revenue. The client has nothing to lose, and therefore we always aim to take 50% of the profit from each new sale we make for them using AI.
Clients almost never say no.
For a full breakdown of how to close clients with this approach, read our dedicated post on how to close almost every client you talk to with the Offer of the Century.
Once you’ve delivered that first result, the upsell opportunities open up naturally. Does their sales team struggle to respond to fresh leads fast enough? Are there hundreds of unanswered Google reviews just sitting there? Is nobody working the phones over the weekend? In each case, you can deploy an AI solution and get paid for it. See how we approach one of those exact upsells in our post on how to get paid for maxing Google reviews with AI.
Why These Phases Must Go in Order
We’ve seen the same pattern play out hundreds of times, and it always ends the same way. People stuck in Learn Mode never launch. They collect tutorials, plan meticulously, yet never make a single dollar. People who only Apply without monetizing get exploited, doing free work indefinitely and never getting paid. Additionally, people who skip Apply and jump straight to charging lose their credibility fast, because clients can smell inexperience.
Trust the process. Move through each phase deliberately, and the results follow.
Free Resources To Help You Make Money With AI Faster
Start with the free Prince Charming Challenge here: The Prince Charming Challenge. This is the fastest way to get set up and primed to go. Inside, you’ll find a 2.5-hour free course walking you through the AI Automation Agency model step by step, a plug-and-play agency website you can download and launch immediately, a ready-to-demo AI system you can show to business owners from day one, and client outreach frameworks showing you exactly how to approach businesses, handle their questions, and get paid.
We also strongly recommend going after your warm network first. Friends, family, old colleagues. We call these Slam Dunks because they’re the lowest pressure way to land your first client and test what you’ve built in a real environment. When you’re ready to develop your technical foundation further, our post on how to build a no-code conversational AI agent in n8n and GoHighLevel is a great place to start.
And if you want the most accelerated path possible, The Instant AI Agency gives you the full system, templates, and training to move as fast as possible.
Conclusion
The AI revolution is not coming. It is already here.
The businesses and individuals who are moving now are stacking advantages that will compound over the next decade. Those who wait, however, are going to find the door much harder to open. You do not need a tech background, a business degree, or a pile of startup cash to make money with AI. You simply need a model that works, a roadmap to follow, and the willingness to take that first uncomfortable step.
We’ve done the hard work. We’ve made the expensive mistakes. As a result, every piece of training, every template, and every community resource exists to make sure you don’t have to figure this out alone.
The five models are on the table. The three-phase roadmap is laid out. The Offer of the Century is in your hands.
All that’s left is for you to start.
Which of the five AI business models resonates most with you right now, and what’s the one thing holding you back from taking your first step? Drop your answer in the comments below. We read every single one.
