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AI Side Hustle
Everyone's racing to be an online AI consultant, all fighting over the same corner of the internet. The real gap is in your own town, and the math on it is genuinely wild.
Where this started This one was sparked by a post from Trent Hughes on X that nailed something I’ve been telling friends in AI for months. Read the original post ↗
This might be the best way to make money with AI right now, and almost nobody is doing it.
Every person learning AI is trying to become an online consultant or content creator, all crowding into the same tiny corner of the internet, competing with each other for the same followers and the same clients. Meanwhile, a huge opening is forming somewhere almost no one is looking: your own town.
The GapSmall Businesses Want A Person, Not A Course
Here's the thing about local small business owners: the plumber, the dentist, the boutique, the law office, the gym. They know AI matters. They just don't want to sit through another online course at 9pm after a full day of running their business.
They want someone in the room with them, showing them how to actually do it with their actual tools and their actual problems. That's a completely different offer from a $49 video course, and it's one almost nobody is providing. The numbers back it up hard:
76%
of small businesses are already using AI
73%
say they need more training to actually implement it
14%
have actually integrated it into core operations
That's from a 2026 Goldman Sachs survey of over 1,200 small businesses. They want in, they know they need help, and only a sliver have figured it out. Honestly, I think the real number who need hands-on help is closer to 95%. That gap between "using it" and "actually good at it" is your entire business.
The MathWhy This Actually Adds Up
Here's the model, and why the headline number isn't clickbait. You run paid in-person workshops for local business owners. Keep it simple:
Ticket price per person$99
People per session30
Per workshop$3,000
Sessions per month (2–3)~$7.5K/mo
Plus retainers: on-call AI personrecurring
Two or three workshops a month is already a strong income. But the real leverage is the back end: after a workshop, a handful of those owners will want you to keep helping. Put them on a monthly retainer as their on-call AI person, the one who sets up their tools, builds their automations, and answers their questions. Stack enough of those and you've built a real, recurring, genuinely lucrative business. The math really does check out.
Real Talk
I'd do this myself if I didn't travel so much. It's local, it's high-trust, and there's almost no competition. If you're in one place and want a business with real margins, this is one of the best openings in AI right now.
The CatchYou Have To Actually Know AI First
Here's the one honest catch: you can't teach this until you can do it yourself. You don't need to be a developer, but you do need to be genuinely good at the practical stuff, setting up Claude, building simple agents and automations, solving a real business problem live in front of someone.
The good news is that's a learnable skill, and it's exactly the thing I teach. Once you can build AI systems for yourself, teaching a local business owner to do the same is the easy part. Do it for yourself first, then do it for everyone else in your town.
To make this concrete, I built you a prompt that turns Claude into a strategist for this exact business. Paste it, fill in where you live and what you're good at, and it'll map out your whole local AI business with you.
Prompt — Plan My Local AI BusinessCopy
You are my business strategist. Help me build a real plan to become the go-to in-person AI person for small businesses in my town. Be specific and practical, not generic. Push back on anything unrealistic.
About me: - Where I live / the town or area I'd serve: [city or region] - My current AI skill level, honestly: [total beginner / can use ChatGPT & Claude / can build simple automations] - My background or edge: [e.g. former teacher, ran a restaurant, good at sales, know a specific industry] - Time I can put in per week: [hours] - Comfortable speaking in front of a room? [yes / working on it / no]
Build me a plan with these sections:
1. My niche pick. Based on my town and my background, suggest 3 specific types of local business to target first (e.g. dental offices, real estate agents, restaurants) and rank them by how easy they'd be for ME to win and how badly they need this. Explain the reasoning.
2. My first offer. Design a simple in-person workshop offer: the promise, the exact outcome an owner walks away with, the length, and a price to start (assume around $99/person, 20-30 people). Give me a one-sentence pitch I could say out loud.
3. The workshop outline. A 90-minute agenda for that first workshop, built for non-technical business owners, that gets them a real win before they leave (a working AI tool or automation for their business).
4. Getting my first 30 people. A concrete plan to fill the first workshop with zero audience: where to find these owners locally, exactly what to say, and 2 outreach messages I can send today (one DM, one email).
5. The retainer back end. How to turn workshop attendees into monthly retainer clients: what the retainer includes, a starting monthly price, and the exact moment and words to offer it.
6. My 30-day starting plan. A week-by-week checklist to go from today to my first paid workshop booked.
7. My skill gaps. Given my honest skill level above, list the specific AI skills I need to be solid on before I teach this, so I don't get caught out in the room.
After the plan, ask me the 3 questions that would sharpen it the most, then revise.
The Real Win
The people who win the next few years won't be the ones who watched the most AI content. They'll be the ones who can walk into a room, solve a real problem live, and get paid for it. Being the local AI person is one of the clearest paths to that, and the door is wide open right now because almost no one has walked through it yet.