Every AI Business Ranked from Worst to Best — Transcript

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1. 0:00So, there are a ton of businesses that
2. 0:01you can start with AI and every day more
3. 0:03and more are being created. That's why
4. 0:05choosing the right business to start is
5. 0:07harder than ever. Now, I've run some of
6. 0:08these businesses, I know friends who run
7. 0:10them, and I see a lot of my community
8. 0:11members start multiple businesses on
9. 0:13this list. So, I've seen and know these
10. 0:15businesses [music] inside out. So, in
11. 0:16this video, I'm going to rank each AI
12. 0:18business that you can start from worst
13. 0:20to best. I'm going to rank them based on
14. 0:22how technical you need to be, the market
15. 0:23space, and long-term durability. So, by
16. 0:26the end of this video, you'll know which
17. 0:27AI business you should try to build and
18. 0:28which ones to ignore. So, a quick
19. 0:30preface, every business on this list can
20. 0:33work. It's really just a matter of what
21. 0:34types of problems that you want to have.
22. 0:36It's obviously based on my experience
23. 0:38and what I've seen, so it's a little bit
24. 0:39subjective. But, each one is going to
25. 0:41get three scores out of five. Technical
26. 0:43is how much skill that you need to
27. 0:44deliver something that people will pay
28. 0:46for, and a lower score on this ranking
29. 0:48means more skill required. Market is
30. 0:50whether there are more buyers than
31. 0:51sellers right now, and durability is
32. 0:53whether it can turn into a real business
33. 0:55that lasts and keeps growing. Also, any
34. 0:57prices that I mention are what
35. 0:58businesses charge, not a promise of what
36. 1:00you're going to make. But, with all that
37. 1:02out of the way, let's start at the
38. 1:03bottom of the list and work our way up.
39. 1:04All right, so number 13 on the list
40. 1:06might be a hot take, but AI SaaS, where
41. 1:08you build software with something like
42. 1:09Cloud Code, and you charge people a
43. 1:11monthly subscription to use it. Now,
44. 1:12this is the most hyped up one on the
45. 1:14list, and to be fair, it also is one of
46. 1:16the most scalable, but it's the hardest
47. 1:17to start. Most people who successfully
48. 1:19scale SaaS already had an audience or a
49. 1:21service business or money going in in
50. 1:23some way, because building the app might
51. 1:25take an afternoon or a few days, but
52. 1:27getting people to find it, pay for it,
53. 1:28and to not churn out or to not cancel
54. 1:30their subscription is the actual
55. 1:31business, and it's not easy. So,
56. 1:33technical here is a four, because
57. 1:34security and infrastructure are going to
58. 1:36get real once you have people actually
59. 1:38using it, hundreds of people, thousands
60. 1:39of people. Market is a one, roughly
61. 1:41560,000 new apps hit the App Store in
62. 1:44the first half of this year, which is
63. 1:45almost as many as all of 2025, and
64. 1:48downloads barely actually moved. And
65. 1:50then, durability here is a three,
66. 1:52because a moat can last, but one
67. 1:53platform update could kill a thin
68. 1:55wrapper. The ceiling is pretty huge,
69. 1:57scalable with a small team, but it's the
70. 1:58worst place to start in my opinion. And
71. 2:00moving on to number 12, we have faceless
72. 2:02AI channels. That could be YouTube,
73. 2:03TikTok, or Instagram accounts where AI
74. 2:06is making the content and you never show
75. 2:07your face. Now, these can work, but
76. 2:09views alone are not going to pay you.
77. 2:10So, you have to be very thoughtful about
78. 2:12what you're building. YouTube won't
79. 2:13monetize mass-produced repetitive AI
80. 2:15slop. So, you need an audience that
81. 2:16somebody actually wants to pay to reach
82. 2:19in the form of sponsorships. So, take a
83. 2:20news page like PewDiePie, for example.
84. 2:22They could theoretically automate that
85. 2:23entire account with AI. And now they
86. 2:25have reach, so sponsors will pay to get
87. 2:27in front of it to get a post. A sports
88. 2:28picks account, they could also sell
89. 2:30people into like a paid Discord where
90. 2:31people in there are also giving out more
91. 2:33sports picks. So, brain rot content
92. 2:35could go viral, but nobody's really
93. 2:36paying to reach that audience. Now, I'm
94. 2:38actually myself, kind of for fun,
95. 2:40building a few faceless channels for AI
96. 2:41Automation Society right now, and I'm
97. 2:43thinking about the audience. And picking
98. 2:45that comes before everything else. But
99. 2:46this one really doesn't take much to get
100. 2:48started as far as like capital or money,
101. 2:50besides maybe just like a Cloud Code
102. 2:52subscription. So, it can be fun to
103. 2:53experiment with and maybe over time it
104. 2:55grows into a real is going to be a two.
105. 2:56Durability is going to be a one because
106. 2:58the platform can change the rules on you
107. 3:00overnight. But there is so much value in
108. 3:02actually being able to have a channel or
109. 3:03an account
110. 3:07where you have a lot of people who
111. 3:08actually care about that content. And if
112. 3:10sponsors care to get in front of it,
113. 3:11very, very valuable. All right, coming
114. 3:13in number 11, AI websites. You basically
115. 3:15just build sites for businesses with AI
116. 3:17like Cloud Code or Codex or Lovable. So,
117. 3:20it really just takes an afternoon
118. 3:21instead of weeks. Now, this is one that
119. 3:23I'd tell a total beginner to start with.
120. 3:25I think it's a great place to start.
121. 3:26It's easy, it's super visual. You can
122. 3:28build a demo site in like 20 minutes
123. 3:29before you even pitch to a business. A
124. 3:31lot of dev agencies are still charging
125. 3:335K to 10K for something that you can
126. 3:35build in an afternoon because of AI,
127. 3:37because those dev agencies might be
128. 3:38doing it the old way where they're
129. 3:39writing custom code. So, right now you
130. 3:41can undercut them. But there is a
131. 3:42ceiling to this business model. I think
132. 3:44it's going to be hard to grow past, you
133. 3:45know, 10, 20K a month, and AI site
134. 3:48builders already sell for maybe a nine
135. 3:50bucks a month subscription. So,
136. 3:52technical here is a one, market here is
137. 3:54a two, and durability is a one. I would
138. 3:56say you use this when you're getting
139. 3:57started, use it for momentum, and then
140. 3:59move up the list. Number 10 though is AI
141. 4:01operating systems, and that's one
142. 4:03central setup where a company's agents,
143. 4:05automations, tools, team knowledge all
144. 4:08live inside of this one thing. Now, I
145. 4:09love these as a foot in the door offer
146. 4:11because once you earn their trust, you
147. 4:12can easily win bigger projects like team
148. 4:15brain setups or consulting projects,
149. 4:17things like that. The problem with
150. 4:19AIOS's is that it's hard to tie a KPI to
151. 4:22it. And I think that every offer that
152. 4:23you have needs one clear metric that
153. 4:25you're moving, and this needs to be a
154. 4:27business outcome metric, something that
155. 4:28they care about. It also only works if
156. 4:30the business owner, or whoever you're
157. 4:31talking to, is already bought into the
158. 4:33idea of AI. Otherwise, they won't really
159. 4:35understand what they're paying for with
160. 4:36this AIOS, and it might be hard to get
161. 4:38them to actually habit shift to using
162. 4:40it, and ultimately that means you might
163. 4:41not get a great case study or any
164. 4:43referrals out of it. So, technical here
165. 4:44is a three, market is a four, and
166. 4:46durability is going to be a two. And
167. 4:48number nine is GEO, or generative engine
168. 4:51optimization. It's basically SEO, but
169. 4:54for AI. So, you're getting a brand
170. 4:55recommendation when someone asks ChatGPT
171. 4:57or Perplexity or Claude Code, whatever,
172. 4:59a question. And money is pouring into
173. 5:01this. Money's already been pouring into
174. 5:02SEO. This is a proven model. Profound,
175. 5:05one of the main tools for this, just
176. 5:07raised $180 million at a $1.8 billion
177. 5:10valuation. And only a handful of people
178. 5:12in my community are even talking about
179. 5:13this whole GEO business model. If you
180. 5:15already do SEO, this is a great fit
181. 5:17because you know how to prove results.
182. 5:20And Vercel CEO says that ChatGPT is
183. 5:22sending them about 10% of their new
184. 5:23sign-ups, which is pretty big. Without
185. 5:25that background though in SEO, [music]
186. 5:27it can be hard to get results. And now
187. 5:29that ChatGPT is also running ads, OpenAI
188. 5:31may have more control in the future on
189. 5:33things like visibility. So, technical is
190. 5:34going to be a two here, market is a
191. 5:36three, durability is a two. Okay, so
192. 5:38number eight is AI receptionists and or
193. 5:40support agents. That's AI that answers
194. 5:42the phone, the website chat, DMs, emails
195. 5:45for a business. [music]
196. 5:46It can help book appointments. It can
197. 5:48hand off to a human when it needs to,
198. 5:49things like that. Now, the ROI here is
199. 5:51super easy to explain. One study of 70
200. 5:53million business calls found that only
201. 5:55[music] 56% get answered by a person.
202. 5:57And for a dentist or an HFA company, a
203. 5:59missed call is a lost job. That's missed
204. 6:01money. Set up for these can usually run
205. 6:03like 1.5k to 5k plus a monthly retainer.
206. 6:06But the catch here is durability.
207. 6:08Podium, ServiceTitan, Weave, they're all
208. 6:10building AI receptionists right now into
209. 6:12their software that these businesses are
210. 6:14already maybe paying for. So, technical
211. 6:16here is going to be a three, market is a
212. 6:17four, and durability is a two. Now,
213. 6:19number seven is AI automation and
214. 6:21integration. So, basically connecting AI
215. 6:23into the systems that a business already
216. 6:24runs, like their CRM, email inbox,
217. 6:27invoicing. You can use tools like
218. 6:28end-to-end, make.com, Cloud Code,
219. 6:30whatever you want to use. This is where
220. 6:32a lot of us started, me included. And
221. 6:34demand for this kind of stuff is still
222. 6:35growing, growing very fast, and it will
223. 6:37not stop growing for a while. AI
224. 6:38integration work on Upwork went up 187%
225. 6:42in the last year. But the issue here is
226. 6:43that just building automations is
227. 6:45getting so much easier, so it's getting
228. 6:46extremely commoditized. And businesses
229. 6:48are now hiring for this kind of stuff
230. 6:49internally. The skill that's actually
231. 6:50worth paying for here is figuring out
232. 6:52the bottleneck, tying the fix to a
233. 6:53business result, and charging for that.
234. 6:55And that's a different business model
235. 6:56that I'm going to talk about later in
236. 6:57this list, because now a single workflow
237. 6:59can just go for like 500 to 2k. So,
238. 7:01technical here is going to be a two,
239. 7:03market is a three, durability is a two.
240. 7:05By the way, guys, I've got this
241. 7:06completely free SOP for you about
242. 7:08getting your first AI automation client.
243. 7:09It's going to go over the exact steps
244. 7:11that has been proven for hundreds of our
245. 7:12AI S+ members to get their first paid
246. 7:15gigs. It goes over the one-sentence
247. 7:16service pitch that can get you started
248. 7:17today, why your first client should cost
249. 7:19you money, the five-minute video that
250. 7:21answers can this person actually deliver
251. 7:22before you've actually received any
252. 7:24money, what to do when you have zero
253. 7:25case studies. There's so many good
254. 7:27things in here that are going to help
255. 7:29you out, even if you already do have
256. 7:30clients, I would recommend grabbing this
257. 7:32because like I said, it's yours
258. 7:33completely free. So, if you want to grab
259. 7:35this, there's a link for it down in the
260. 7:35description. Let's get back to the
261. 7:37video. Okay, so number six, AI
262. 7:38workshops. [music] So, getting paid to
263. 7:40teach a company's team how to use AI in
264. 7:42their actual jobs. Published rates that
265. 7:44I found go from $1,000 for a half day up
266. 7:46to 5K for a full day workshop with a
267. 7:48bigger team, and only 36% of employees
268. 7:51say that they feel properly trained on
269. 7:53AI, and I would bet that the real
270. 7:54number, if you think outside of just
271. 7:56that survey, is much lower than 36%.
272. 7:58Now, I've done a bunch of these AI
273. 7:59workshops myself, and it's a great great
274. 8:02foot in the door. It builds trust
275. 8:03instantly because you're in the room
276. 8:04teaching. You see all the problems they
277. 8:06have, and almost always after you do a
278. 8:08workshop, do you win a bigger project
279. 8:10because now they think of you as the AI
280. 8:12expert in their lives. So, for this
281. 8:13offer, technical is a three because
282. 8:15teaching is a skill, and of course, you
283. 8:16need to learn the tools that you're
284. 8:18teaching. Market is going to be a three,
285. 8:19and durability is a three. Okay, number
286. 8:21five is interesting, and this is AI lead
287. 8:23gen. You're generating leads for a
288. 8:24business. You use AI to scrape and
289. 8:26enrich and personalize and test way more
290. 8:28outreach than a human team ever could.
291. 8:30And I love this one because it's so
292. 8:32sticky. If you're sending someone leads,
293. 8:34and they're obviously monetizing those
294. 8:35leads, they're not going to want to
295. 8:36cancel the retainer if you're good at
296. 8:38it, at least. And it's the clearest KPI
297. 8:39on this whole list. More leads typically
298. 8:41equals more customers or more revenue.
299. 8:43Clay, one of the biggest tools in this
300. 8:45sort of like AI lead space, passed $100
301. 8:47million in annual revenue last year. But
302. 8:49this business model isn't easy. You have
303. 8:51to crack lead gen for your own business
304. 8:53first because if you can't even generate
305. 8:54your own leads, how would you be able to
306. 8:56generate leads for someone else? And how
307. 8:57would you get someone to trust that you
308. 8:58can generate leads for them? The best
309. 9:00spot to be in is an agency that already
310. 9:02does lead gen, and then you just kind of
311. 9:03add AI on top of it, and now you're an
312. 9:05AI lead gen agency. So, technical here
313. 9:08is a four, market is a three, but
314. 9:10durability is a five. I think it's super
315. 9:12super sticky, and everyone's always
316. 9:13going to need leads. That's how
317. 9:14businesses work. Now, number four, also
318. 9:16very interesting, AI creative studio.
319. 9:18Ads, commercials, carousels, video
320. 9:20editing for brands. AI video editing was
321. 9:22the fastest growing skill on all of
322. 9:24Upwork last year, up 329%, and one
323. 9:27person can now do what used to take a
324. 9:28whole team and expensive gear. But
325. 9:30anyone can just hit the generate button,
326. 9:32even inside of Meta's own ad tools, and
327. 9:34the average price for a UGC video
328. 9:36dropped about 44% in just a year. So,
329. 9:38what brands pay for is taste, knowing
330. 9:40which model fits which audience, and
331. 9:42running the ads and using the data to
332. 9:44make the next ones. So, technical here
333. 9:46is a three, market is a four, and
334. 9:48durability is a three. This one's also
335. 9:49very sticky if your creatives and if
336. 9:51your ads and stuff like that actually
337. 9:53work. So, it could be very very
338. 9:55lucrative. Okay, number three is AI
339. 9:57education and/or building a personal
340. 9:59brand. So, [music] courses, communities,
341. 10:01newsletters, or videos with your face on
342. 10:03it or not, it's always better if your
343. 10:04face is tied to it. And full disclosure,
344. 10:06this is like the main business I run.
345. 10:07That's kind of, you know, you guys are
346. 10:08watching this video right now. So, take
347. 10:10my score with that in mind. You have
348. 10:11[music] to be in the weeds to teach this
349. 10:13stuff, or at least be good on camera.
350. 10:15And obviously this space is getting more
351. 10:16competitive every day because there's
352. 10:17more content creators popping up.
353. 10:19There's also more people entering this
354. 10:20market as consumers. So, it's a great
355. 10:22opportunity. But, I think it is the most
356. 10:23durable thing that you can build because
357. 10:25when people are invested in you, you can
358. 10:26pivot whenever the tools change. And the
359. 10:28catch here though is speed. Building an
360. 10:30audience takes years. And I did agency
361. 10:32work and consulting and workshops long
362. 10:34before I had a personal brand. Proof
363. 10:36comes first and trust comes next. So,
364. 10:38don't get distracted early. But, once
365. 10:40you've found your lane, you can start
366. 10:41spin-off businesses and you can power
367. 10:42them with your brand, like a SaaS
368. 10:44product later, or like, you know, all
369. 10:46these other tools that I've mentioned
370. 10:47earlier in this list, which is how all
371. 10:48of the other businesses that I'm running
372. 10:50right now are powered because of my
373. 10:51personal brand and my education. So,
374. 10:53this one is going to be a three for
375. 10:55technical, a three for market, and a
376. 10:57five for durability. Okay, moving on to
377. 10:59number two now, AI consulting and
378. 11:01audits. You go into a business, you
379. 11:02figure out how it actually works, you
380. 11:04find the bottleneck, and you prescribe
381. 11:05where AI saves the most time or money.
382. 11:07And so, this is like the consulting
383. 11:09piece of the AI automation and
384. 11:10integration that I talked about earlier.
385. 11:12Think of it like being a doctor.
386. 11:14Building the fix keeps getting cheaper.
387. 11:15So, what they're really paying for is
388. 11:17the diagnosis, plus all the human stuff
389. 11:19like change management, super important.
390. 11:21Governance, super important. It's
391. 11:23getting stakeholders on board, culture,
392. 11:25super important. LinkedIn ranked AI
393. 11:26consultants the second fastest growing
394. 11:28job in the US. And this year both
395. 11:30Anthropic and OpenAI launched their own
396. 11:32services companies to put AI into
397. 11:34business. So now they have their own AI
398. 11:36consultants that are implementing Claude
399. 11:37or ChatGPT, things like that. Big
400. 11:39investors are even buying up accounting
401. 11:41firms and IT shops just to run them on
402. 11:43AI. Now audits can usually be sold for
403. 11:451K to 15K. So in this sort of market,
404. 11:47technical is a three, market's a four,
405. 11:49and durability's a four. Because AI can
406. 11:51write an audit, but it can't run the
407. 11:53change inside of a company and get
408. 11:55people on board. And it beats education
409. 11:57because it pays faster. And number one
410. 11:59on this list is becoming a chief AI
411. 12:01officer. Now there are two ways to do
412. 12:03this, and I think they're equally good.
413. 12:04You can become the AI person at one
414. 12:06company that you already work at and
415. 12:08become the chief AI officer and drive
416. 12:09strategy and drive the P&L across the
417. 12:11entire organization, or you can go
418. 12:13fractional and you can be the AI lead
419. 12:15for a few companies at once. And this
420. 12:17can actually stem off of the one that we
421. 12:18were just talking about, being an AI
422. 12:20consultant, and then maybe you get
423. 12:21promoted to like a fractional AI
424. 12:22officer. Now I know the first one, being
425. 12:24an in-house chief AI officer C-suite
426. 12:26executive, isn't technically a business,
427. 12:28but it can pay more than most businesses
428. 12:30on this list. IBM surveyed 2,000 CEOs of
429. 12:33big companies, [music] and 76% of their
430. 12:35organizations now have a chief AI
431. 12:36officer. And that was just out of 2,000
432. 12:38large companies. But a year earlier,
433. 12:40that number was 26%. PwC also found that
434. 12:42workers with AI skills earn a 62% wage
435. 12:45premium, and one recruiting firm puts
436. 12:47full-time chief AI officer base pay at
437. 12:49around 280K to 650K a year. Technical's
438. 12:52a four because you need to know enough
439. 12:54to never get caught out. Market's a
440. 12:56five, durability's a five. And the more
441. 12:57AI advances, the more valuable this role
442. 13:00will become, I think. And I think it's
443. 13:02going to become way more normalized for
444. 13:03every organization to have a chief AI
445. 13:05officer of some sort. So if you look at
446. 13:07this whole list, the businesses at the
447. 13:08bottom are where you're selling the
448. 13:10thing you build, and the ones at the top
449. 13:12are where you're selling your judgment.
450. 13:13So if you're brand new, then start with
451. 13:15something like websites to start getting
452. 13:17some momentum. And then you want to use
453. 13:18those same clients to work your way up
454. 13:20towards things like workshops [music]
455. 13:21and consulting and maybe even eventually
456. 13:23something like that chief AI officer
457. 13:24seat. But like I said at the beginning
458. 13:26of this video, all of these can work.
459. 13:28What matters is that you pick one and
460. 13:29you focus on it like crazy. Instead of
461. 13:31jumping to a new niche every few weeks
462. 13:33or jumping business models every few
463. 13:34weeks, just pick one and stay focused.
464. 13:36Out of all of the entrepreneurs that
465. 13:38I've talked to that have built
466. 13:38successful businesses, it wasn't because
467. 13:40they picked the best business at the
468. 13:42right time and the best blah blah blah.
469. 13:43It's because they had way more focus
470. 13:45than everyone else who was trying to do
471. 13:46that thing that they were doing and they
472. 13:47stuck with it long enough to make it
473. 13:49work. So pick one and make it work. So
474. 13:51now you know which AI businesses you
475. 13:53should build and which ones to avoid.
476. 13:54But the window to build the best
477. 13:55businesses won't stay open forever.
478. 13:57Every day more and more people will
479. 13:58learn about them and saturate the market
480. 14:00and the ones who learn how to do this
481. 14:01fast will be the ones that capitalize on
482. 14:03this market. So if you want to start
483. 14:04moving now, my free community has every
484. 14:06course, every resource, every GitHub
485. 14:08repo, skill, everything that I've shown
486. 14:10on this channel for completely free. You
487. 14:12can learn all the technical knowledge
488. 14:13you need to build any of these
489. 14:15businesses. Then if you want to take it
490. 14:16further and you want to connect with
491. 14:17other people who are actually building
492. 14:18these different businesses and talk
493. 14:19about, you know, clients and projects
494. 14:21and scoping and things like that, then
495. 14:23you can join my plus community. No
496. 14:24matter where you're at, these
497. 14:25communities will help you move fast. So
498. 14:27you can join those communities with the
499. 14:28links in the description, but that is
500. 14:30going to do it for today. So if you guys
501. 14:31enjoyed the video or you learned
502. 14:32something new, please give me a like,
503. 14:33helps me out a ton. And as always, I
504. 14:34appreciate you guys making it to the end
505. 14:35of the video. I'll see you all in the
506. 14:36next one.
507. 14:38Thanks, everyone.