I’m looking for practical, revenue-generating ways people are using AI right now. Not hype, not “start an agency,” but methods that genuinely work.
If you know any guides, courses, or step-by-step resources that are legit and current, point me in the right direction. Real examples are even better.
Thanks.
How are people actually making money with AI in 2025?
byu/WildWatercress8665 inEntrepreneur
Posted by WildWatercress8665
18 Comments
Here me out. I made an AI tool yes. But I came up with an ethical framework for how to use AI and guess what? More people are interested (and paying) for me to present on ethical AI. But I am still building on my tool because I use it regularly (and I have plenty of downloads on the free thing it produces) and I am working on v2. Thing is if you set upon a thing, its leads you to other things and if you pursue all the relevant vectors, you create something valuable that people want without realizing it.
How did people make money without AI? The answer is the same.
Adobestock and youtube.
Use it to enhance your expertise and solve a market need. That’s what I do.
AI’s most profitable individuals right now are just using it to speed up existing money making systems. Consider e-commerce product photos and descriptions, SEO content, video scripts, video editting and email sequences. they are not really selling “AI” but rather utilizing it for advantage. Then again, AI for me should just be a tool that helps you execute but your effort, drive and vision should be the key.
Most people trying to make money with AI are looking for new business models. Why?
Remove 80% of the manual labour a business or person has to do and they will pay. AI is an efficiency multiplier and many people still don’t know how to implement it.
interested
Seeing this up close in my company, our dev team’s been building AI-driven products for startups, and the ones that *actually* make money usually fall into 3 buckets:
* Tools that automate a painful, daily task (like content ops or lead scoring)
* AI layers added to existing software to make it smarter, not just flashier
* Niche saas products solving one deep workflow problem using AI
Most that try to “build with AI” fail. the ones that solve a *real business bottleneck* survive.
If you want a solid breakdown on how people are turning ai ideas into real products, this YC guide is worth reading:
[https://www.ycombinator.com/library/8f-how-to-build-an-ai-startup]()
My first recommendation – write down things/tasks that you do during a typical week, and out of those, what you think you could automate, to save time/efficiency.
Then, research if there is a need for such tool, and if people will be willing to pay for it.
That would be your first project.
In terms of YouTube and other resources – I strongly recommend Duncan Rogof channel – his videos go beyond the technical “how-to”s, and his Skool community (The Build Room) is a great place to start.
Good luck 👍
Hi! I’m an online coach specializing in fitness and nutrition, and I take online clients from over the country.
I actually use AI to make graphics and templates for social media posts, and templates for digital products that I can sell on online stores like journals, trackers, calendars, etc. I use AI to make an organized template which is the skeleton for it, then fill in as I need, it’s excellent for saving time and funds.
I also am using it to implement client outreach and acquisition, I’m looking into applications I can use to find leads that I can actually reach out to.
There are already a thousand ways to make money, AI is another tool that’s available to us to make our processes easier, just like heavy equipment machines for construction, and design software for engineers and technicians.
The most practical approach I’ve seen is using tools like Jasper or Claude to speed up client deliverables – one freelancer I know uses them to generate proposal drafts and follow-up emails in like 10 minutes instead of an hour. Another guy runs a small consultancy and uses Canva’s AI features to pump out custom pitch decks for prospects way faster than hiring a designer. Not revolutionary stuff but it adds up when you’re doing volume.
My company doesn’t directly generate revenue from LLMs. But we have sped up development time, and that has helped increase margins.
In our company we use AI to accelerate every single process.
Need ideas to put a pitch deck together? Run an AI agent to support your brainstorming process.
Need data on the TAM of a certain region? Have deep research finding exact numbers for you.
Need a report on metabase but you’re not technical? Have GPT writing the basic-est code possible and get it done in 30 seconds
It’s not always about building a business “about AI” but using AI to build your business faster
People making money with ai are basically selling courses on ai
Using AI to build software and websites. The price paid by clients hasn’t dropped much in recent years but you can build bigger and faster so your income per hour is much higher.
Some people are also paid to train AI but I don’t think it pays that well.
Easiest way is to just buy stocks and let everyone else do the work.
It’s been more of a savings and enhancement. For example I used it to analyze data on my business and help quantify growth metrics. I then had it come up with a compensation plan for a new employee we are looking to hire that aligned with our growth goals.
I’ve used it to review my tax returns and it found a few mistakes.
I’ve had it develop marketing strategies and analyze our sales numbers.
I’ve had it build out social media engagement ads that have generated new customers.
I’ve had it come up with retention campaigns.
I actually used it recently on the side to write up an advertisement for a specific investor and I posted it in several places. That hit overnight and made me $7k. That was the most direct and fastest return….
It’s basically like having a high level employee for nearly free
AI can actually help us reduce the workload in some repetitive tasks.
With AI, you can indeed
* Make money in so many differents ways => you create a product and sell it
* You can also save money (Amazon: worst case when you replace people by AI)
* But you can also add value/solve problems (like I read in some of the previous posts) by adding AI layer => it might also mean to spend more money, which is acceptable due to the benefits in other areas