Transcription
What is the laziest way to make money with AI in 2026?
As a beginner, as someone starting from zero, I'm Aduina McKennon. I've been featured in Forbes as an AI business strategist. I run a company called Future IQ and I've made close to seven figures using AI. So, when I tell you these five ways work, I'm not guessing here. I'm actually literally telling you what I've seen, what I've done, and I'm going to break it all down for you literally today.
Now, here's the thing. A lot of people are still talking about 2025 strategies, but in 2026, it is a completely different game. The tools are better, the demand is higher, and honestly, it has never been an easier time for a regular person with absolutely no tech background, no savings, no special degree to make real money using AI. I'm going to share the five ways I would make money with AI if I was starting from zero today. and I'm going to tell you the cost to get started, how much effort it takes, and how much you can actually make with number five being my top pick. So, with that being said, let's get into it real quick.
If you want to make money with AI, there's one rule I need you to understand first. AI doesn't replace the hustle. It does the heavy lifting for you, but you still have to show up and you still have to put the work in, but instead of working 10 hours, you're working too. And that's the game we're going to talk about today.
Okay, this one is so simple, it almost feels like cheating. And it is completely passive once you set it up. Here's what I mean by AI digital products. I want you to think about things like prompt packs, Canva templates, AI apps, notion dashboards, mini courses, ebooks, or even step-by-step guides. These are things that you literally create once using AI and then sell it over and over and over again without doing any extra work.
Let me give you a real example. Let's say you're a fitness person. You could use Chachi BT to create a 30-day meal plan template. You can package it up nicely in Canva, sell it on Etsy, or even post it on Gumroad for like 15 to $47. Now, I want you to imagine that's selling 10 times a day. That's $150 a day while you sleep. Or maybe you're into business. What you can do is create a pack of 50 Chachi PT prompts for small business owners. Sell it for $27. People are buying these like hot cakes every single day. They are buying it because they don't want to figure out AI themselves. They just want the shortcut and you're selling them the shortcut.
The cost to get started almost zero. ChachiBT is $20 a month. Canva has a free plan. Gumroad and Etsy are free to list on. Listen, you can literally start this like right now. The effort is low. You can create your first product in a couple of hours and the potential. One creator I follow is on pace to make over $50,000 this year from digital products alone. That's not a fluke. That's a system.
Here's how to get started. All you got to do is pick one niche or a vertical you know something about. It could be fitness, parenting, relationship, real estate, cooking, literally whatever. Ask Chachi PT or Claude to give you 10 product ideas for that niche. Price between $9 to $27. You pick the one that solves the most obvious problem, build it, list it, then do it again. The secret is picking a niche that you already know and that already has buyers. Don't try to invent a new market. Go where people are already spending money and give them something better.
Okay, this one is blowing up right now and most people are sleeping on it. Here's the deal. Every single podcaster, YouTuber, business owner, and coach out there is sitting on hours and hours of recorded content, long interviews, webinars, YouTube videos, and they know that they need to be on Tik Tok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts, but they don't have the time to cut it up. So, this is where you come in.
What you're going to do is you take their 1-hour video, run it through an AI tool like Opus Clip or Descript, and in about 15 minutes, you have 10 short, punchy, ready to post clips. You add captions, and guess what? All you got to do is add a little bit of music and it's done. You charge them $500 to $1,500 a month on a retainer to do this every single week. Think about that. One client, $1,000 a month. two clients, $2,000 a month, five clients, you've got yourself a full-time income working maybe 10 hours a week, if that. And the tools will do most of the work. Opus Clip literally watches the video, finds the best moments, adds captions, and formats it for every platform automatically. You're mostly just reviewing it, doing small little tweaks, and sending it off to the client for approval.
The cost to get started. Lock in with me here. Opus Clip has a free plan. Cap Cut AI is free. Descript is about $24 a month. You don't need anything else. You're probably wondering, "How do I find clients?" Go on Instagram or LinkedIn and look for people who post long form content but have no reals or shorts. Send them a quick message. Tell them you notice they have great content, but it's not being repurposed correctly. Offer to do the first week for free. Let the results speak for themselves. Once they see the engagement, the activity, the visibility, they will continue to want to pay you. This is one of the fastest ways to get your first client in 2026 because the problem is quite obvious. The solution is clear and the value is immediate.
Now, this one is close to my heart because this is one of the first things I helped businesses with when I first started building Future IQ. Every small business owners, we're looking at your local dentist, your favorite restaurant, the gym down the street. They all know that they need to be on social media, but they have no idea what to post, when to post, and what exactly to say. And honestly, most of them are terrible at it. Here is your opportunity.
You become their AI powered social media manager. You use ChachiPT to write their captions. You use Canva AI to design their graphics. and you use a scheduling tool like Buffer, which is my favorite, or later to post everything automatically, and you charge them $500 to $1,500 a month to handle it all. Here's the math that you should get excited about. Five clients at $500 a month is $2,500. Five clients at $1,000 a month is $5,000. And once you have a system which AI helps you build, managing five clients doesn't take much more time than managing one.
The key is to pick a niche. Don't try to be the social media manager for every type of business. Pick one like a restaurant, like real estate agents, fitness studios, and become the go-to person for that specific group. When you specialize, you can actually start charging more. You can start working faster in creating an optimized system and you'll start getting referrals easily because your clients all know each other. The cost to get started, ChachiPT or Claude is like $20 a month. Canva is free. Buffer has a free plan. You're looking at maybe $20 to $50 a month to run this whole business.
To get your first client, walk into a local business you love. Tell them you manage social media for businesses like theirs and you'd love to show them what you can do. Offer to do the first two weeks for free. Take over their Instagram. Post great content, then send them the invoice. Something that really worked for me with landing my first client is I literally went to the people that I actually do business with, like my nail technician. I was able to pitch them offers about running their social media. They went from 50 followers all the way up to 20,000 followers just like that within 6 months.
Okay, we're getting into big money now. Let's go. This one is my personal favorite for 2026 because the demand is absolutely through the roof. Here's the problem every local business has. Customers call or message them at 9:00 p.m. on a Sunday asking, "Are you open? How much does this cost? Can I book an appointment?" And guess what? Nobody is there to answer. So the customer goes somewhere else.
An AI chatbot or agent could fix that. It answers questions, books appointments, qualifies leads 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without a single human involved. And here's the wild part. A human receptionist cost a business about $4,000 a month. An AI chatbot cost them about $200 to $500 a month. You set it up, you charge a startup fee anywhere between $500 to $1,500 and then you charge a monthly maintenance fee of $300 to $500. The business is saving thousands of dollars and you're making reoccurring income every single month. I've seen beginners sell four AI chat bots and make $23. And no, I didn't stutter there.
The tools you need are simple. Gohigh Level is a platform most people use. It's about $97 a month, and it lets you build chat bots for multiple clients. ChatBT Plus is about $20 a month. That's your whole tech stack under $120 a month to run a business that can make you $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Here's how to get started. Pick one type of business. lock into dentists, salons, real estate agents, chiropractors, roofers. They all have the same problem. You build one chatbot template for that type of business. Then go find five of those businesses in your city and offer to show them a demo. When they see the bot answering their most common questions in real time, they will want it. The setup takes about 10 minutes. Once you have your template, the selling is the work, but once you have three or four clients paying you every single month, guess what? You've built something real.
In my lens, this is number one, and this is the one that I think is the biggest opportunity in 2026 that most people are completely missing right now. Here's the situation. There are over 33 million small businesses in North America and a huge chunk of them are restaurants, plumbers, electricians, nail salons, landscapers. Either have no website at all or they have a website that looks like it was built in 2006 and hasn't been touched ever since.
In 2026, you can build a professional, beautiful, fully functional website for a small business in about 2 hours using AI tools. And I mean a real website with their logo, their photos, their services, their contact form, literally everything, not a template that looks like a template. I'm talking about an actual professional site. Tools like Wix AI or even Lovable.dev dev let you describe what you want and they build it. Let's get even deeper. Tools like manage.im has a fully blown AI agent built in. So, it can actually build websites for you and publish it all within less than 15 minutes. And the whole thing will cost you peanuts to actually go ahead and launch this.
So, here's where it gets really good. You charge $200 to $2,000 for the website, depending on how complex it is. A simple five-page site for a plumber could be up to $500. A full site with a booking system for a salon could be up to $1,500. A restaurant site with a menu gallery and an online ordering option could be up to $2,000. You just pick a price and name it. But then this is the part that changes everything. You upsell them the chatbot. Hey, I can also add an AI assistant to your site that answers customers questions and books appointments automatically. That's $300 a month. Now you have a one-time project fee and a reoccurring monthly income from the same client. That's the bundle. Website plus chatbt onetime fee plus monthly retainer. This is how you build a real business.
And let's talk about finding these clients. It's easier than you think. Drive around your neighborhood. Look for businesses with no website or a bad one. Google them if you want. You can even leverage a tool like manis.im to literally scrape the internet to find you. All of these listings that have no website links. That's your lead. Send them a message. Show them what their competitor sites look like versus what you could build for them. That contrast alone will close the deal. The most valuable real estate in 2026 is not on Earth. It's on the internet and you can be the person who builds it.
So, let's recap. Five ways to make money with AI in 2026 starting from zero. Number five, AI digital products. Create ones, sell forever. Number four, AI short form video editing. Turn long-form content into viral clips for creators. And number three, AI social media manager. Don't sleep on this one. Run social media for small businesses using AI. Number two, AI chatbot setup. Build and sell AI bots that answer questions and book appointments 24/7. And number one, the AI website plus chatbot bundle. build websites and add chat bots for local businesses and collect both a project fee and a retainer fee.
Now, here's what I need you to know right now. You don't need to do all five of these. Pick one, just one, learn it, get your first client, get your first dollar, then build from there. I've been able to be successful through my company, Future IQ, because I can tell you it didn't happen because I knew everything. It happened because I picked something, committed to it, and kept going even when it was hard. The people who win with AI in 2026 are not the ones with the most knowledge. They're the ones who take action the fastest. So, which one are you going to start with? I want you to drop it in the comments. I read every single comment and respond. And if you want to go deeper, if you want to know exactly how to find clients, how to price your services, and how to scale this into a real business, make sure you subscribe because I'm going to be breaking down all of that in the next couple of videos. I'm Aduina McKennon, voice of AI. I'll see you in the next one.