I Ranked Every AI Side Hustle (Here’s What’s ACTUALLY Good)

99% of the AI side hustles that you see online are a complete waste of time. And I know this because I've started pretty much every kind of AI business you can over the past 3 years. I've been fortunate enough to have generated over $7 million from these businesses. And I've also seen the real world results from over $230,000 AI entrepreneurs in my community. So I know what works and what doesn't. And in this video, I'm going to be giving you the definitive nobullshit guide to which hustles can actually make you an extra 5 to 10k per month and which ones are just going to drain your bank account. Now, when it comes to picking a side hustle, especially when you're just starting out, it's not just about the money. But like, give me a second to explain that. You need to think about the skills that you're learning and how valuable those skills will be in the future and things like how hard it's going to be to actually get a client and ultimately whether this side hustle has potential to turn into something real in the long term. So, to keep this ranking fair and grounded in reality, I've scored every single AI side hustle I could find on the internet on a 50point scale based off five key criteria. Firstly, skills gained. like how valuable are the skills you'll learn in a side hustle going to be looking into the future. Secondly, earnings potential. How much can you realistically make from this? Thirdly, ease of getting clients. How hard is it actually to find someone to pay you? Number four is the long-term potential. So, can you grow beyond just a side hustle? And most importantly, beginner friendliness. Like, how easy is this to actually start without risking a ton of time or money? All right, so first up

let's kick things off with a really interesting one, which is creating an AI influencer. So this is where you use the AI image and video generation tools that are exploding right now to create a completely fictional character. You can build a personality for them, a story line, and then make engaging or funny content to grow their social media. So you can think of characters like the Bigfoot vlogs you might have seen around or the crazy Rustafarian monkey, Jar Monkey, which I keep seeing popping up. And these guys have been blowing up. And the way you make money through these AI influencers is brand deals because once you have an audience, brands will pay you to have maybe Jar Monkey holding some drink in a video. And I think this is a really interesting and underexplored place right now with a ton of potential if you're kind of a creative person. Now, when we break this down with our rubric, here's how it stacks up. It's honestly the skills that you learn with this are really, really good. Like getting deep into AI, video, and image generation right now is a super valuable place to be. But the challenge is going to be the beginner friendliness. So, this hustle relies entirely on you being a very creative or funny and consistently interesting. And that's not a simple process that you can just copy. It's a kind of creative skill that you need to grow over time or you either kind of have it or you don't, which means that it's not going to be suitable for everyone. So, for that reason, even though the skills and the potential of this are really high, the difficulty for a beginner brings it down. So, I'm putting the AI influences solidly in the B tier. Okay. Next up, we

have AI powered drop shipping. So, this is where you use AI to streamline the classic drop shipping model. You might be using AI store builders, which are blowing up right now, AI to find trending products, and AI to create your ads and your product descriptions. And on paper, it sounds like the dream, right? The shortcut to a business in a box for a beginner. Now, I'm going to keep this 100% honest with you guys here. My entire online business journey started with drop shipping. And I can tell you it is probably the worst thing you could do as a side hustle. And that's because the whole point of a side hustle is to put money in your pocket and not take it out, right? And with drop shipping, you have to spend thousands and thousands of dollars. I would know cuz I did it when I was 18. I lost like all my money multiple times. and you have to pour this money into ads to be able to find just one winning product. And it took me over 14 months to make my first dollar in profit with drop shipping. So, if you got a bunch of cash saved up and you're ready to go full-time, then this is an incredible opportunity and it can be a real business. But, if we're talking about side hustles here, it completely fails this lowrisk criteria we have. So, for that reason, bit controversial, but I'm going to put it straight to the bottom on Fier. Avoid this if you're just starting out, in my opinion. Right.

Now, let's talk about meme marketing for brands. The idea here is to find trending memes and then use AI tools to adapt those memes for businesses and inject their products or logos right into the content. Now, I know this might sound quite difficult, like you have to build some crazy complex system, but you really don't. At least not at first, cuz you can literally just browse some meme pages, find what's trending, and then use the new incredible AI video tools like Higsfield and others to create incredible ad creatives with the brand's products inside. But sometimes you see restaurants or local businesses blowing up with this kind of organic content and kind of funny meme marketing. And it's happening more and more all the time. And your job is to help them hop on the back of trends using these AI video and image generation tools. And the skills here are solid because the creation process is now so easy with AI that you can quickly produce amazing content for these kind of ads. This is creative. It's high impact for brands and it's more accessible than ever. So I think this is a solid ATS side hustle of you

to pick up. Okay, now for the big one, the AI Automation Agency or AAA. And this one, I'd say, is completely different from everything else in the list. This isn't just some random side hustle that people are throwing around on the internet that might make money. It is a proven way to make money that I've personally seen work for myself and tens of thousands of other people, many starting with absolutely no tech background at all. So, in my free community alone, we did a survey and over 20% of the members are making anywhere from $1 to $30,000 per month. And that's just on my free community when they come in. That's not even considering maybe 6 months down the line. And I actually created the AI automation agency model back in 2023 because I saw history repeating itself. I think of when the internet first came out. Businesses were totally lost. They had no idea what to do with it. How to get online presence and make the most of this new technology. And people who got in on this early, they made a fortune. And today, the technology business need help with is AI. And the exact same opportunity is right here. And that's what the AI automation agency is all about. Being the guide for businesses to understand and implement AI. But the real breakthrough that made this blow up into such a massive thing these days is that I realized that you could do it with no code tools. basically drag and drop tools that allow you anyone to build powerful AI systems without writing a single line of code. So with an AI automation agency, what do you actually do? Well, you can help businesses in three main ways. You can either teach their teams about AI like understanding how to use chat GBT. You can point out where AI can help the most, which is called AI consulting. Or the main one is to build AI automations for them, like AI agents that can answer their phones or other kinds of automations using no code and low code tools. Now, I know an agency might sound like a huge thing to set up, but I've put together a oneperson version of this business that anyone can start, and I've even made a whole video on it that I'll link at the end of this one. That makes this the perfect side hustle for a single person to run and get off the ground. And so, this AAA model is the exact one that I use to get my start in AI, growing my agency, Morningside AI, that one over there, from my spare bedroom into working with some of the biggest brands in the world right now and doing AI development and consulting for them. So, so when you look at our scoring system, this is high across the board and the skills that you learn are the most valuable you can get right now. understanding AI automation and how AI can out business. The earning potential of this is enormous and the long-term potential is incredible. It sets you up to build your own AI empire going in any different direction. That's why this is without a doubt the most proven model on this entire list and it's right on top

in S tier. Next up, we have AI powered social media content creation. This is essentially a modern design and video freelancing, but supercharged with AI to do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. You're going to be creating images and animations and ads for businesses. Now, while this might sound quite boring, your AI skills give you a massive advantage. You can create content that's faster and cheaper and often better than what many traditional agencies are going to be offering. So, you can walk right out to a local business and show them a bunch of awesome product photos and ads that you've already made for them using AI. This makes getting clients so much easier when you can do the work before and show that you know what you're doing and there's not like a question like, "Hey, does this person actually know what they're doing here? " So, by using AI, you're giving them faster results and overall a better outcome, which is a very easy sell because of the incredible skills that you learn here and the clear competitive edge that AI gives you when coming to make offers to businesses. I'd put this as a solid A tier. Okay, next

one is AI assisted rum writing, which was an interesting one to find. This involves using AI to help job seekers to optimize their resumes, and I can keep this one pretty short. The fundamental problem with this is that you're trying to sell to broke people. Trying to get $500 out of someone without a job and without an income is going to be an uphill battle. and it's just basically a bad business model. So overall, this is just a really bad idea and I'd put this

at an F tier. Now, let's talk about AI assisted freelance writing. At first glance, this might seem like a tough one. It's kind of a commoditized service, especially with AI when everyone can use AI to do writing. And it's not always obvious who your clients are going to be, what you're going to write for them, and sell. If you're just trying to offer email copyrightiting or ads or blog posts, I'd put this as a Ctier. But here is the A tier play that you can get out of this, and that's specializing in AI SEO. The world is moving away from traditional search engines towards conversational LLMs like asking chat GPT for things and finding businesses through that. And right now businesses who depend on this are terrified of becoming invisible. So you can go to them with a high value offer like I will write your content that gets your business found and recommended by chatbt and other AI models. This is a new and urgent problem that businesses will pay good money to solve. So if you frame it this way and focus on AI SEO, then I'll definitely put that up as an A tier. Okay, next up is a video captioning

services. And this is about using AI to add captions to videos for creators. So you might come to me as many people have and offer me, hey, I'll do all your captions in all these other languages so that you can get more viewership on from a more broad audience. And look, I'm going to be pretty blunt here that when people ask me to do this for my own videos, I just don't even bother responding really. I'm like, why would I do this? The platforms like YouTube are already trying to solve this. YouTube has its own AI dubbing feature and they're getting insanely good at doing auto captioning as well. So you'll be trying to sell a service that is of low value today and is likely going to be completely obsolete tomorrow. it is going to be very hard to make money and any real money with this. So, this is a complete dead end. I would not recommend it. I'm going to put this in the F tier. All right. Now, let's get

back to another banger. Vibe coding websites for local businesses. This is where you use powerful AI tools like Bolt Lovable to build professional websites just by describing what you want. This isn't just some basic template you're giving them. You're going to be creating custom sites using these tools for them. And it's the skill you learn here that is the real prize. Being able to vibe code is incredibly valuable these days and is one of the best skills I could recommend to anyone wanting to get into AI. Being able to build software just by speaking into a computer is an incredible skill to have. And another reason I really like this one is because the sales process is really smart. You can go to a local business anywhere with an ugly website. You can spend a few hours at home building a new one for them, a stunning one that looks way better than what they have right now. Then go and show it to them live and say, "Hey, do you want this? I'll give it to you for 500 bucks. " Just like we talked about before with using the AI marketing assets, you can literally create the thing that you're selling them before you even sell it to them, right? You can show them that you know what you're doing. You can show them the final result and then just ask for the compensation after that. And this is really just the starting point. Like I said, this ability to create software using these vibe coding tools is in my opinion one of the most valuable things that you can pick up and have in your toolkit as a person in the AI age over the next 5 to 10 years. So you might start with basic websites, but you can easily progress into building custom apps and softwares for clients and eventually create your own micro SAS and software products. And this is so powerful because it essentially unlocks software creation to you, which has proven to be one of the most reliable paths to building wealth in the modern world. So the skills here are 10 out of 10. The client acquisition is simple and the long-term potential of this is massive. So this is one of the best ways to get started in AI with a side hustle, period. And it's an absolute S tier play

in my opinion. Okay, the next one is publishing AI generated books on Amazon. The idea here is that you use AI to create low content books, things like coloring books or word searches, then you sell them on Amazon. Now, look, I'm sure that you can make some money here. Someone's definitely making a bit of money doing this, but is that really what you want to do? It just seems like mad boring to me. And business ideally should feel like play. Like whatever energizes you the most and pulls you in and makes you want to work on it non-stop, you are going to become much better at that. You're going to spend much more time. It's going to be harder for you to burn out if you're doing something you're actually interested in. And personally, I can't speak for you, but taking coloring books with AI and putting them on Amazon is probably not something I'd be jumping out of bed to get to in the morning. You'd likely have to create and publish a ton of these to see any kind of real income, and you probably burn out pretty fast just by not being interested in it. So, because the motivation factor of this is so low, I'm going to be putting it in the D tier. All right, next up is looking at

AI generated travel itineraries. So, the idea here is to sell pre-made travel plans on places like Etsy or to do it as a service where people talk to you and then you make them a travel plan. But to me, the flaw here is pretty simple, and that's travel is a very high stakes and important purchase for most people. It's often one of their biggest expenses of the year, and they want it to be perfect. In my opinion, you just cannot trust AI with something that important yet. So, because of the high stakes nature of this and the lack of trust, this one is definitely a Dtier. like you could make money with it, but I think the risk that you take on to of giving these to people and not really doing your research and being able to do what a travel agent does and really get into the details of planning out the perfect trip for them, you're just going to get a bunch of nasty reviews and there's a lot of money on the line there. So, I'd probably stay away from it. All right

next up is creating AI generated faceless content. And this is a super popular one right now. You use AI video generation tools to create content for platforms like YouTube Shorts and Tik Tok without ever showing your face. And the real power here is in the leverage that you get out of these AI tools. If you can get super nerdy with it, you can build a fully automated system that will find trending topics. It's going to write the scripts. It's going to generate the videos and it's going to be able to pump out tons and tons of content across multiple platforms while you sleep. You might have also seen some of those accounts making either value based like interesting content or funny content using this exact same model. Like I said before, the skills that you will learn here in AI video are going to be really, really valuable. But the main challenge is that you have to be the one to figure out a system and a niche that actually works. So, it's not just going to be plugandplay. It's going to require a ton of testing because the leverage is so high, but it does require you to be able to crack this code. I'm going to be putting this in a B tier. Next, we have

selling AI generated children's audio books. The idea here is to use AI to write and rate bedtime stories. I can keep this one pretty quick, right? In my opinion, the niche market here is just so small that it's going to take a very long time for you to make any kind of significant money. So, the potential for this is not great. And just overall, there's plenty of better opportunities on this list. So, I'm putting this in detail. Okay. Next

let's talk about being an AI consultant. And this is where you help businesses to understand AI, doing AI audits of their operations and then recommending AI tools and strategies for them to do the AI adoption. This is a really good opportunity and we're just getting started with it. But it comes with a bit of a chicken in the egg problem which is to be a good AI consultant, you need some real world experience. But how do you get that real world experience without doing consulting or some other kind of AI integration for businesses? So most of the successful AI consultants start first with an AI automation agency where they get in the trenches and they learn what actually works for businesses. But instead, if you just start with consulting, you're going to feel like a phony for quite a long time. And plus, to get clients, you're going to need some kind of credibility, which usually means making a personal brand and creating content because no one's going to pay a complete nobody with no experience for highle advice on how to guide the AI strategy. And there's also a real risk that you could give some bad advice because you actually don't have that hands-on experience. And so, you're on the hook for giving bad advice that could potentially make businesses spend a ton of money on things they don't need. So, the potential here is huge, but the barriers to entry and needing experience and likely a personal brand and making content are pretty significant. So, for that reason, I'm putting it as a strong B tier. All

right, next we're talking about AI print on demand products. And this is a pretty classic side hustle these days. You use AI to create some funny slogans or cool designs. You put them on t-shirts and mugs that are really appealing to a certain type of person. And then you put them on a platform like Etsy where people can find and buy them. I actually made a challenge video on this way back in 2023 when this was just sort of starting off and I got banned pretty quickly. But maybe they've changed their policies around AI generated content. Now, the good part about this is once you have a winning product and you found a niche that you can work in, it can become a source of autopilot income for you. But the bad part is actually finding that winning. Similar to the drop shipping issue, you're going to have to do tons and tons of market research to figure out what's trending and also figure out how to use these AI image generation tools to get really, really good designs and then be able to match that with a specific niche like nurses or new moms that actually want to buy and are looking on Etsy for stuff. And from my own experience, that research process takes forever. and it's a real grind to get things off the ground. So, selling on Etsy is a proven and solid model, but just be prepared for that upfront grind. So, for that, I'm going to be putting it in the

B tail. Next up, we have AI assisted YouTube thumbnail design. The idea here is to use AI to help you create super clickable thumbnails for YouTubers. Now, I'm going to debunk this one pretty quickly. The market for thumbnail design is so commoditized these days. There are thousands and thousands of people trying to do this or have been doing it for years now, which drives the prices way down. So to stand out with AI, you're going to need to build a very complex automation system that can generate dozens and dozens of variations at once, which is quite a high technical barrier for a beginner. So overall, this is far too competitive in my opinion, and the barrier to doing it well with AI is too high. So I'd put this as a C tier. All

right, next we have another interesting one, which is AI generated podcasts. My first reaction to this was that it seemed pretty freaking stupid. We have enough idiots with microphones. Might have seen those memes and it's like ban podcast equipment sales or something. My thought here is that we don't need to give AI podcasting equipment as well. But for this reason, a generic AI podcast is an F tier idea. However, there is a bit of opportunity here if you look closely. And that's if you do it by creating entertaining characters like Bigfoot or Jar Monkey like I mentioned earlier and have them interview AI versions of famous people, they could actually get a lot of views because it's funny or entertaining, right? It taps into the same weird creative energy that works on short form content. So, while it would take quite a lot of time to get off the ground in my opinion, a lot of testing and grinding, if you take this creative and character-based approach, then it does have some potential. It's unique and interesting, it's working on short form, so it might work on long form. And so, if you're doing it from that specific angle, I'd put this as a Ctier. And

finally, we have AI powered newsletters. And the concept here is to use AI to research and write a newsletter on a specific topic and really build a list of talking to the same sort of people, talking about the same topic. And inside this is the final lesson for today really and that's that the product or the thing you're trying to sell is only half the battle with a business. The real problem with newsletters and anything else you're going to try to do is the marketing like finding your clients. And newsletters have already way overdone before AI and now there's going to be even more of them. So how are you going to get enough people to subscribe? Building an email list of tens of thousands of people which is really what it's going to take to make any reasonable money is a monumental task especially for a beginner and it's going to take you a very long time to build an email list. Most people are making content or they're running ads or both. So, because the audience building is such a massive challenge, especially for beginners, this is a pretty poor choice for a side hustle, and I'd put it in the detail. So, there you have it. The definitive no BS ranking of all the side hustles you're probably going to see online. And if you're serious about doing this, you should really only be looking at those two S tier options in my opinion. And here's why. You need to be thinking long-term about this, right? The skills that you gain are what's actually going to make you money and set you free in the long run. If you just want some short-term cash, sure, you can try some of the other ones. But if you're serious about building something that ultimately allows you to quit your job and live a life of complete freedom, then you need to focus on gaining super valuable skills and experience. And that's what my entire channel and my entire message is really about. I started an AI as a complete beginner 2 and a half years ago. And I learned this stuff hands-on. I built businesses that have made me more money than I ever dreamed of making. And now I get to live my life with complete freedom doing whatever I want. And that is the real promise of AI. And both of those S tier options are incredible opportunities that you can bet on long-term, build valuable skills, and ultimately be able to quit your job and build the life of your dreams. And if you want to learn exactly how to start an AI automation agency as a oneperson business, I've got my full video breaking down that entire method just up here. And also in the description below, I'll link my completely free 2-hour guide on vibe coding websites and web apps that anyone can start with. It's perfect beginner material to get started. And if you haven't already, subscribe to the channel for more content about how you can use AI to build businesses, make money, and build the life of your dreams. But aside from that guys, that's all with the video.