I’m looking to understand the most effective strategies and opportunities to make money using AI next year. The field is changing so fast, and I want advice from people who are already doing this successfully or have insights on where the biggest potential is. I need guidance on where to focus my efforts and which options are realistic for someone starting out.
Honestly, if you’re trying to cash in on AI in 2025 and aren’t already riding the wave, you might feel a bit late—but truth is, the surf’s just getting gnarly. Here’s the deal: everyone and their dog is “monetizing AI” now, but a lot of that is noise or people selling you snake oil (or worse, another course). If you have real skills, aim higher. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s actually working for people making real money, not just pennies:
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Custom AI tools for business: Companies want to save money or automate stuff. If you can build or customize AI workflows (think no-code tools, RAG chatbots, workflow automations), SMBs will throw money at you to solve bottle necks. You don’t even need to make it complex; half of this is gluing together GPT APIs and a Google Sheet.
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AI consulting & prompt engineering: It isn’t just prompts, it’s process. If you can turn business needs into something LLMs and FMs understand and crank out results, you’re gold. Consultants charge $200/hr+ to make “AI-powered sales copy generators” for teams that don’t want to touch ChatGPT themselves.
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Content & media: Still wildly profitable. But forget generic text or 1000 identical “AI newsletters”—think video, interactive docs, explainer bots, or hyper-personalized lead mags built by AI. People who hustle and stand out can get AdSense, sponsorships, etc.
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AI SaaS/apps built on APIs: If you can code, even a little, toss up a micro SaaS that solves a hair-on-fire problem for a niche. Use GPT-4o, Anthropic, whatever—you don’t need your own model. People are still buying “AI resume analyzers” or “AI video scripters.”
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Selling AI assets/tools/templates: Things like prompt packs, Notion templates, agent blueprints, fine-tuned models—even silly stuff like “AI death metal voices for TikTok”—can bring in nice micro-income streams if you market to the right audience.
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Training & courses: Yes, there’s info overload, but if you teach specifics (“AI for legal assistants,” “How to automate Figma workflows with GPTs”) you can make more than selling “How to ChatGPT” basics.
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Freelancing gigs: Find non-tech businesses on Upwork desperate to use AI but clueless. Offer solutions, not just tech. Actual example: people are charging $2–5k to implement RAG chatbots for law offices using LlamaIndex and OpenAI’s API.
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Don’t sleep on open source: Tons of devs get sponsorships and big consulting gigs building open-source AI wrappers or agents. It’s not just “build for free”—big companies like stability want to support/fund useful projects.
The trick: Niche down, focus on actual problems, not shiny demos. Everyone’s heard the hype, so you need to show value in business terms, fast. If you’re not technical, partner with someone who is. If you’re a dev, find a business-savvy hustler to sell your stuff. And IMO, don’t bother trying to train your own foundation model at home unless you enjoy melting your GPU and your wallet.
AI is eating everything, but the winners aren’t the ones just pumping out “10,000 words of AI garbage a day.” It’s people who tune in and solve something painful, quick.
And please—for humanity’s sake—skip the “AI Instagram coach” route. It’s already oversupplied, underwhelming, and a little bit tragic.
Anyone who says “AI gold rush is over” is sipping decaf. Sure, it’s crowded, but have you seen how fast new crevices are opening while everyone’s distracted by shiny chatbots?
Couple ways I’d personally attack it—disagreeing a tad with @stellacadente’s “forget training models at home”: niche model fine-tuning is about to explode. Look, nobody’s homebrewing a GPT-5 rival in their basement, but vertical LLMs—think AI for weirdly-specific legal documents, scientific research, or even game lore generation—are in demand, especially for privacy-sensitive fields that don’t want to risk proprietary data with OpenAI or Google. With open weights everywhere, you can cook up domain-specific models using LoRA or QLoRA on rented GPUs, sell API access, or license to orgs.
Also: AI-powered products for physical world stuff—robotics, smart vision, process automation on the cheap. Everyone’s sleeping on small-scale warehouse or restaurant bots. Cheap hardware plus open-source AI models = SaaS but for moving boxes and flipping burgers.
Oh, and AI-powered security/authentication tools are a sleeper hit nobody’s hyping. Deepfake and spoofing detection, real-time voice auth checks—cyber-insurers and banks are hunting for workable solutions nobody’s built yet.
Quick hack nobody talks about: using AI for arbitrage in digital markets—stuff like AI-driven ad buying, product pricing in marketplaces, or algorithmic copy-testing. Yes, it’s cutthroat, but with the right model and a bit of shade, folks still quietly mint.
Disagree slightly on prompt packs and templates as goldmines—they’re amazon gift card money unless you hit a weird viral vein. Respectable side hustle, not quit-your-job territory (but prove me wrong, Internet).
Last thing, you don’t have to be tech; partner up for “AI meets [industry painpoint]” consulting. The weird cousin who sells duck eggs or the aunt with her bakery? They want cashless checkout and automated marketing, not more eBooks.
The AI winners will be the ones who get out of their own echo chamber and actually ask “what sucks in this industry?” Not just drop another Discord bot, y’know?