If you spend any time online, you’ve probably seen plenty of claims about making money with AI.
“Start an AI side hustle this weekend.”
“Create passive income with ChatGPT.”
“Make thousands every month using AI.”
You know the sort of thing.
So, can you really make money with ChatGPT?
The reality is a little less exciting, but I think it’s actually far more useful.
ChatGPT isn’t a magic money-making machine. It isn’t going to create a business for you while you sit back and watch the money arrive.
What it can be is an incredibly useful tool that helps you turn your existing knowledge, experience and ideas into something people are prepared to pay for.
That’s an important distinction.
I’m 56 and have worked with digital technology and small businesses for more than 20 years. I certainly wouldn’t claim that AI has transformed my life or suddenly started making money for me.
What it has done is help me work faster, generate better ideas, learn new things and feel more confident taking on larger pieces of work because I know I have another tool available to support me.
I use ChatGPT virtually every day now.
So rather than promising you an AI-powered fortune, let’s look at ten realistic ways you could use ChatGPT to help you earn more.
1. Use ChatGPT to support a freelance service
This is probably one of the simplest places to start.
If you already have a skill that somebody is prepared to pay for, ChatGPT can potentially help you deliver that service more efficiently.
That might include:
- Website development
- Copywriting
- Social media management
- Digital marketing
- Administration
- Research
- Graphic design
- Consultancy
- Virtual assistant services
This is very similar to how I use ChatGPT myself.
I haven’t made money directly from ChatGPT. Nobody has paid me simply because I know how to use it.
However, I regularly use it to support freelance work that clients are paying me to deliver.
That might involve researching a subject, developing ideas for a website, reviewing content, troubleshooting a problem or helping me think through the best approach to a project.
The skill and responsibility are still mine. ChatGPT simply helps me do the work more effectively.
2. Turn something you know into a service
You probably know more than you think you do.
Perhaps you’re brilliant with spreadsheets. Maybe you understand bookkeeping, gardening, fitness, photography, recruitment, property, social media or organising events.
ChatGPT can help you explore how that knowledge might become a service.
For example, you could explain your experience and ask:
“Based on these skills and my experience, suggest five simple services I could offer to small businesses. For each one, explain the problem I would solve, who might buy it and how I could package the service.”
The important bit is that you’re starting with your knowledge, not asking ChatGPT to invent expertise you don’t have.
AI can help uncover the opportunity. You still need to provide the value.
3. Create a digital product
This is probably one of the areas where AI has created the most opportunities.
Digital products could include:
- Guides
- Templates
- Checklists
- Workbooks
- Planners
- Training resources
- Prompt packs
- Mini courses
If you’ve got useful knowledge, ChatGPT can help you structure it into something another person could use.
For example, a photographer might create a beginner’s guide to taking better product photographs. A bookkeeper could produce a simple financial checklist for new freelancers. A personal trainer might create a four-week beginner exercise planner.
ChatGPT can help brainstorm the product, structure it, improve the writing and identify gaps.
But there’s a catch.
Creating a digital product is the easy bit.
Finding somebody who wants to buy it is the hard bit.
That’s something that gets conveniently forgotten in many of the “passive income with AI” videos.
You still need an audience, a problem worth solving and a way of reaching potential customers.
4. Offer content creation as a service
Businesses need an enormous amount of content.
Website pages, blog articles, newsletters, social media posts, product descriptions and email campaigns all have to come from somewhere.
ChatGPT can make producing that content considerably faster.
But I wouldn’t recommend simply generating an article and selling the raw output to a client.
That’s where AI content quickly becomes generic.
A better service is AI-assisted content creation.
You interview the client, understand their business, identify their audience and decide what they’re trying to achieve. Then use ChatGPT to help research, structure and develop the content before reviewing and improving it yourself.
The human knowledge and judgement are where the real value sits.
5. Help businesses use AI
There’s another opportunity developing that I think will become increasingly important.
Lots of small business owners have tried ChatGPT.
Far fewer really know how to incorporate it into their everyday work.
If you become confident using AI yourself, you could eventually help other people learn to use it.
That might mean:
- One-to-one training
- Workshops
- AI setup sessions
- Creating prompt libraries
- Helping businesses identify useful AI tasks
- Developing simple AI workflows
You don’t necessarily need to become a technical AI consultant.
There is enormous value in simply being able to show another small business owner how to use these tools practically.
It’s also one of the reasons I created AI Growth 101. I’m learning all the time myself, but I can share what I’m discovering and help other business owners apply it without drowning them in technical jargon.
6. Use ChatGPT to improve an existing business
This is possibly my favourite one because it tends to get overlooked.
Making money with ChatGPT doesn’t necessarily mean starting another business.
What if AI helped your existing business become more profitable?
You could use it to:
- Analyse customer feedback
- Brainstorm new services
- Improve your website
- Develop marketing campaigns
- Research competitors
- Review sales information
- Improve customer emails
- Analyse advertising performance
I’ve experienced this myself recently with Facebook advertising.
I can take the results from an advertising campaign and use ChatGPT to help me analyse what’s happening. I can discuss the figures, look at what appears to be working and think through what I should test next.
It doesn’t make the decisions for me.
What it does is help me better understand the information in front of me, which means I can make more informed decisions.
If that eventually leads to more customers or lower advertising costs, ChatGPT has helped the business make more money without directly earning a penny itself.
7. Research and validate a business idea
One of the easiest mistakes to make when starting something new is falling in love with the idea before finding out whether anybody actually wants it.
ChatGPT can make early-stage research much easier.
You can use it to explore:
- Potential customers
- Competitors
- Customer problems
- Possible pricing
- Alternative business models
- Questions to ask potential customers
- Strengths and weaknesses in your idea
You should never treat everything ChatGPT tells you as fact, particularly when researching markets or competitors. Check important information against reliable sources.
But as a thinking partner, it can be extremely useful.
And sometimes discovering that an idea isn’t particularly good can save you considerably more money than making one work.
8. Create a small online course or workshop
If you can teach somebody how to achieve a useful outcome, you may have the beginnings of a workshop or course.
ChatGPT can help turn your knowledge into a logical learning journey.
You might use it to develop:
- Course structures
- Lesson plans
- Exercises
- Workshop activities
- Supporting guides
- Quizzes
- Presentation ideas
Again, the knowledge needs to come from somewhere.
I’d be very cautious about asking ChatGPT to create a course on a subject you know nothing about and then presenting yourself as the expert.
Use AI to help package what you genuinely know.
That’s a much stronger foundation for building something people will value.
9. Use AI to expand what you’re capable of doing
This is one of the biggest changes I’ve noticed personally.
ChatGPT hasn’t suddenly given me completely new professional skills. What it has given me is additional support when I move slightly outside my comfort zone.
That has made me more confident about taking on larger projects.
If I encounter something unfamiliar, I can ask questions, explore possible solutions and learn as I go.
Recent research from OpenAI has described something similar, with people increasingly using AI to tackle tasks that would traditionally sit outside their normal job.
That creates an interesting opportunity for freelancers and small businesses.
You don’t have to become an expert in everything.
But if AI helps you learn faster, solve more problems and expand the range of work you can confidently tackle, your existing skills potentially become more valuable.
10. Use the time you save to create something new
Finally, there’s the benefit I’ve probably noticed most.
Time.
ChatGPT helps me produce certain types of work considerably faster than I could before.
And time has value.
If something previously took four hours and now takes two, I’ve gained two hours.
I could use those hours to find another client, improve my website, create a new product, learn something new, develop AI Growth 101 or, quite frankly, finish work earlier and go for a walk.
Productivity doesn’t always have to mean cramming more work into the day.
But if you do want to increase your income, freeing up time gives you more capacity to do it.
So, can you really make money with ChatGPT?
Yes.
But probably not in the way some YouTube thumbnails would have you believe.
ChatGPT isn’t the business.
It’s a tool that can help you build the business.
The opportunity isn’t really about pressing a button and watching AI create money.
It’s about combining three things:
What you know + a genuine customer problem + AI helping you deliver the solution more effectively.
And I think that’s far more exciting.
You don’t need to be a programmer. You don’t need to understand how large language models work. And you certainly don’t need to be 22 and launching the next Silicon Valley startup.
I’m 56, I’ve spent more than 20 years working in digital, and I’m still learning new things every day.
That’s actually one of the things I like most about AI.
It gives us another tool to learn, experiment, create and perhaps open doors that weren’t quite as practical before.
Start small.
Pick something you already know how to do.
Then ask yourself a simple question:
How could ChatGPT help me do this better, faster or for more people?
You might be surprised where that question takes you.
Want to learn how to use AI in your business?
If you’re a small business owner, freelancer or simply curious about how tools such as ChatGPT could help you, you’re very welcome to join the AI Growth 101 community.
It’s completely free and focused on practical ways to use AI and digital marketing to help grow your business, without the jargon or hype.
Come and learn with us, ask questions, try things out and discover what AI could realistically help you do next.