Imagine for a moment that you're trying to drive
a car across the Atlantic Ocean. Okay. You have
the engine, the steering wheel, a full tank of
gas. You're pushing that pedal to the floor.
Right. You're working harder than you have ever
worked in your life. Yeah. But you're sinking.
It doesn't matter how much effort you put in.
You chose the wrong vehicle for the terrain.
It's a brutal image, isn't it? But it is the
perfect description for starting the wrong business
in 2026. You can work 18 hour days. You can hustle
till you burn out. But if you're trying to swim
against a two and a half trillion dollar AI wave.
you're just going to drown. It is Friday, February
6th, 2026. And as you said, AI spending has hit
that massive figure. The fundamental rules of
how income is generated have been, well, rewritten.
A lot of the old advice is frankly dangerous
now. It really is. So today we're doing a deep
dive into 25 best AI business ideas for 2026.
The Honest Guide by Max Zahn. Our mission is
to dissect the four distinct buckets he outlines
to see where the real value is. And I love how
he structures this. It's not just some random
list of cool ideas. He creates a hierarchy. We've
got the trash bucket stuff you need to run away
from. Okay. Then the easy bucket. That's your
first five to 10 ,000 a month. The medium bucket,
scaling up to 50K. And then finally, the hard
bucket. That's where you're talking asset building,
generational wealth. Let's start at the bottom.
I think avoiding failure is just as important
as finding success. Yeah. The trash bucket. Yeah.
And it's called these black holes that just eat
time and capital. But the thing is, they don't
look like trash from the outside. No, that's
the trap. They look like gold mines. They're
sirens. They look approachable. They're these
shiny objects, but they're just dead ends. And
the first ghosts we have to exercise are the
holdovers from, what, the early 2020s? Specifically,
NFT flipping. I remember the vania. But is anyone
actually still trying that in 2026? You'd be
surprised. People see the old data. Oh, this
board ape sold for millions. And they think the
market's just, you know, sleeping. It's not sleeping.
It's a graveyard. The liquidity dried up years
ago. Unless you're washing money or you're a
massive celebrity, there is just no organic market
there. Then you've got crypto trading. Now, hold
on. I know people who still trade. Are you saying
it's impossible to make money on? Not impossible,
no. But let's distinguish between gambling and
a business. Unless you have serious capital,
sophisticated risk management algorithms and
the emotional control of a monk, you're just
providing liquidity for the whales. It's just
so much easier to lose money than to make it.
It's a casino, not a business model. Fair enough.
The source also throws multi -level marketing
MLM into this bucket. Ah, the pyramid with better
branding. Yeah. Look, if your business model
depends on recruiting people who recruit people,
it's not a business. It's a mathematical trap.
But here's where it gets really interesting for
2026. NA identifies specific AI victims. These
are business models that used to be legitimate,
you know, decent ways to make money, but they're
trash now because the tech just got too good.
I'm curious about these because usually technology
helps businesses. Which ones are now obsolete?
Okay, so basic captioning and subtitles. Three
years ago, you could make a living on Rev or
Upwork transcribing audio. Today, gone. Tools
like Descript, YouTube's AutoCaps, they're faster,
cheaper, and 99 % accurate. There's no edge left
for a human. You can't charge a dollar for something
a machine does for a fraction of a cent. It's
just a race to the bottom on price. Exactly.
Same with low -level data entry. If a human can
copy info from a PDF into a spreadsheet, an AI
agent can do it for a penny. That's what those
Fiverr micro -tasks have become. It keeps you
busy, sure. You feel productive. But you're treading
water while the ship sails away. And don't even
get me started on print -on -demand. Wait, print
-on -demand? That's always touted as the ultimate
passive income side hustle. Put a design on a
mug, sell it. It was, but now. Generative AI
means anyone can create 10 ,000 designs in an
hour. The market is just flooded. Unless you
have a hyper -niche audience like, I don't know,
left -handed knitting enthusiasts in Austin,
you're just adding noise to a landfill of identical
t -shirts. So Anka gives us a trash filter. Three
questions to ask before you start anything. I
think these are crucial for anyone listening.
Right. Question one, is AI replacing this right
now? Question two, is the industry shrinking?
And question three, is it statistically easier
to lose money than make it? If the answer is
yes to any of those, Ron. I have to ask. Yeah.
If the data is so obvious, if the trash nature
of these models is so clear in 2026, why do people
still get trapped in them? Why are these courses
still selling? Because they look easy. They promise
a reward without the friction of learning a real
skill. It's the path of least resistance. And
unfortunately, in business, the path of least
resistance is usually the path to nowhere. So
it's the illusion of ease that traps them. Precisely.
Let's pivot to something that actually works.
Let's move to this. Second bucket, the easy bucket.
OK, so let's clarify easy. This does not mean
push button, get money. It means low barrier
to entry. The goal here is five to ten thousand
dollars a month. And the timeline's usually 30
to 60 days. You're not trying to be Mark Zuckerberg
yet. You're just trying to learn how to talk
to humans and exchange value for money. This
feels like the training wheels phase, but with,
you know, real paychecks. What are the key opportunities
here? First step. Short form video editing. Just
look at our behavior. We're all scrolling TikTok,
Shorts, Instagram constantly. Creators need clips.
But here's the secret. Creators hate editing.
It's so tedious. But didn't we just say AI does
this? It does the heavy lifting, yeah, but not
the storytelling. Tools like Descript, Captions
.ai, and Vizard make the mechanics ridiculously
easy. The strategy is arbitrage. You take a long
video like this. You use AI to chop it into 10
clips, add the dynamic captions, take out the
silence. Then you, the human, pick the funniest
moments. You check the pacing. You charge $200
to $500 for a batch. So you're using the tool
to do the 80 % of the work that's boring, and
then you sell the finished product. Totally.
It's service arbitrage. Then you have social
media copywriting. Similar concept. Founders
hate writing. They just do. They're busy building.
So you can use ChatGPT or Jasper to get the structure,
the hooks, the body. But you need that human
touch to make it authentic so it doesn't sound
like a robot. You just cold DM niche industries,
fitness coaches, real estate agents, and say,
hey, I can make you sound like a thought leader.
I want to touch on AI chatbot setup. This one
feels like it's specifically for local businesses.
It is. Think about a gym. or a salon, or a law
firm, they get asked the same five questions
every single day. How much is a cut? Are you
open on Sundays? Do you take walk -ins? It just
distracts the staff. It's friction. Huge friction.
So you set up a bot using tools like Intercom
or ManyChat. You program it to answer those specific
questions. The value isn't the coding. There
is no code. The value is the implementation.
You save them time. They pay you a setup fee,
maybe $1 ,000, plus a monthly management fee
to keep it running. And I see AI receptionists
on the list, too. Is that different from a chat
bot? It's slightly different. This solves the
missed call pain point. If a plumber misses a
call, they lose a job. That's $500 gone. An AI
receptionist. and there are voice AI tools for
this now, answers the phone, qualifies the lead,
checks the calendar, and books the appointment.
It feels indispensable to the business owner
immediately because it's directly protecting
their revenue. There's one more here that caught
my eye, the UGC middleman. Can you define UGC
for the listener? Yeah, user -generated content.
Brands want real people showing off their products,
not polished models. It converts way better on
TikTok. But brands hate coordinating with 50
different 19 -year -old micro -influencers. It's
like herding cats. So you're basically the project
manager. Precisely. You are the bridge. You find
the creators, you manage the deadlines, you make
sure the quality is good, and you hand the finished
content to the brand. And you just pocket the
difference between what the brand pays and what
the creator charges. Now, you call this the easy
bucket, but I imagine there's still a learning
curve. Oh, absolutely not. And look, I'll be
vulnerable here. I still wrestle with what we
call prompt drift. What's that? It's so frustrating.
You'll have a prompt that's working perfectly
for a specific output, say... writing a certain
style of email. Then the AI model updates on
the back end or something shifts and suddenly
the quality just drops. The output gets weird.
It happens. So even in the easy bucket, you have
to be willing to tinker. You have to be the pilot,
not just the passenger. So if everyone has access
to Descript and ChatGPT, why does one person
make $10 ,000 a month and another makes zero?
What is the primary differentiator? It's the
service. It's showing up. It's understanding
the client's problem. The tech is a commodity.
The ability to listen to a gym owner complain
about missed calls and say, I can fix that by
Friday. That is the differentiator. So execution
and client service beat raw tech. Every single
time. Let's level up. The medium bucket. The
goal here is $10 ,000 to $50 ,000 a month. And
it describes this as shifting from hiring for
output to hiring for results. This is the sweet
spot. You're not just a pair of hands anymore.
You're a problem solver. you are tying your work
directly to the client's revenue the first opportunity
here is automation agencies this sounds a bit
more technical it is but it's no code technical
businesses are just drowning in manual work they're
copy pasting data from emails to spreadsheets
to crms it's a nightmare automation agencies
use tools like xavier make or na10 these are
like digital glue Can you give us a concrete
example? Sure. Imagine a real estate agency.
A lead comes in from Zillow. Usually an agent
has to see the email, type the info into their
phone, then remember to text them. An automation
agency builds a flow. Lead hits Zillow. Zapier
grabs the data, sends it to the CRM. triggers
an AI text to the lead within 30 seconds, slacks
the agent. That speed probably doubles their
conversion rate. Easily. And because you're making
them money, they will happily pay you a monthly
retainer to keep that system running. I found
the concept of Microsoft's really fascinating
in this bucket. This is huge. So SawSaws is software
as a service. Usually you think of these giant
companies like Salesforce. MicroSaws is about
solving niche problems. You're not trying to
build the next Facebook. You're building, say,
a scheduling tool just for dog walkers or a lead
scraper that connects to specific government
APIs for construction permits. And you can build
these without being a traditional coder. Yes.
You use no -code tools like Bubble or Softar.
You're literally dragging and dropping logic.
Whoa. Imagine scaling a Microsoft to a billion
queries without writing a single line of traditional
C++ or Python. The leverage there is just staggering.
It really is. It changes the physics of software
development. You focus on the problem, not the
syntax. The guide also mentions motion graphics
in this bucket. Why is this in medium and not
easy with the video editing? Because while AI
can do OK video, premium content still needs
a sophisticated human eye. There's a workflow
mentor using VO 3 .1 and Nano Banana Pro. These
are advanced AI video tools. They help you turn
reference videos into these scroll -stopping
graphics fast. But to charge five grand for a
promo video, you need design sense. You need
to understand pacing, color theory, branding.
The AI is the paintbrush, but you still need
to be the artist. And Anne emphasizes the need
for measurable case studies here. You have to
prove it. In the medium bucket, you can't just
say, I do automation. You have to say... I helped
this real estate agent increase leads by 40 %
in month one. That data is the currency of the
medium bucket. So how does the billing model
change effectively in this bucket compared to
the easy bucket? You stop charging for the hour
or the task. You start charging retainers. Pay
me $3 ,000 a month and I will ensure your lead
flow never stops. Retainers create predictability.
That's how you build a real business, not just
a series of gigs. It stabilizes your cash flow
so you can hire help. So retainers create predictability
over one -off gigs. We have arrived at the hard
bucket. The goal here is millions. This is about
owning assets and equity. This feels like a different
sport entirely. This is where the rules change.
You stop trading time for money. You start leveraging
systems, capital and leadership. One of the opportunities
listed is buying small businesses. This is the
boring business strategy. You go to sites like
Bisbee Cell or Flippa. You look for car washes,
laundromats, RV parks, you know, businesses that
are unsexy, maybe run by someone who wants to
retire and is stuck in the 1990s. You buy them
and then you layer AI automation on top. So you
take a cash -flowing asset and you optimize it.
Right. You install that AI receptionist we talked
about. You automate the booking. You optimize
the ad spend. Suddenly margins go up from 10
% to 25 % and the value of the asset doubles.
You're essentially flipping businesses using
technology. There's also investing in AI -first
founders. Right. If you have capital from the
previous buckets, you can use platforms like
AngelList or Republic. You're betting on the
jockeys, the founders who are building the future.
But this is definitely high risk, high reward.
And then there's the personal brand to deal flow
model. Can you explain deal flow? That sounds
like Wall Street jargon. It's the Mr. Beast or
Logan Paul model, but for business. Deal flow
just means opportunities coming to you. If you
build a massive audience by creating content,
which is easier now with AI, you have attention.
Attention equals distribution. Once you have
distribution, you can launch anything, a product,
a service, a software, and you have instant customers.
Or companies will offer you equity just to mention
them. It's the ultimate leverage. And finally,
licensing playbooks. Intellectual property. Yeah.
If you figure out a perfect workflow for, say,
automating real estate leads using Zapier and
GPT -5, you can package that whole system, the
actual code, the prompts, the automations, and
sell it as a product on prompt base or... Gumroad.
You build it once, you sell it infinite times.
Zero marginal cost of replication. What is the
biggest barrier to entry for this bucket compared
to the others? It seems like it's not just skill.
It's capital allocation and patience. You need
money to buy the business or make the investment.
But more importantly, you need long term thinking.
These aren't 30 day plays. These are three, five,
10 year plays. So long term thinking and capital
allocation. That's the gatekeeper. Before we
wrap up, we need to address the elephant in the
room. If the roadmap is this clear, why do most
people never reach these buckets? And it talks
about the 1 ,000 -day rule. This is my favorite
part of the whole guide. He identifies shiny
object syndrome as the killer. It goes like this.
You start the video editing business. You do
it for three weeks. It gets hard. You get a rude
client. Then you see a YouTube video about dropshipping
or crypto. It looks easier. So you quit video
editing and you start dropshipping. And you reset
your progress. Every single time. You go back
to level one. Progress can't compound if you
keep resetting to zero. Yeah. Anna says winners
lose more than losers, but they stay long enough
for those losses to matter. That's a profound
statement. It reframes loss as just data gathering.
Exactly. The fix is the 1 ,000 -day rule. Commit
to one bucket, one opportunity for 1 ,000 days.
That's about three years. Consistency beats intelligence
every time. Why does quitting early feel so safe
to the human brain? Why do we do that? Because
if you quit and start something new, you can't
be judged yet. You're a beginner again. There's
no failure in the beginning phase, only potential.
If you stick with something for three years and
it fails, that hurts. That's a blow to the ego.
So we protect our egos by constantly restarting.
So starting over means you're never technically
wrong. It's a defense mechanism. And it keeps
you broke. That hits hard. Let's recap the big
ideas here. We start by avoiding the trash, the
NFTs, the data entry jobs that robots have taken
over. Right. Don't drive the car into the ocean.
Then we move to the easy bucket to build confidence
editing, chatbots, simple services. Get your
first wins. Learn to sell. Learn to deliver.
Then we scale to the medium bucket by solving
actual business problems with automation and
sauce. Moving from output to results. Shift from
being a pair of hands to being a brain. And finally,
the hard bucket. Owning assets, equity, and IP.
Generational wealth. The end game. The core truth
here seems to be that in 2026, the competitor
is not AI itself. It's the person who knows how
to use AI. Absolutely. And remember that stat.
AI job posts are growing three and a half times
faster than any other category. The demand is
there. You just need to pick a lane. So here's
our call to action for you. Don't just consume
this deep dive. Don't let this be another piece
of content you scroll past. Pick one bucket,
choose one opportunity, and execute without distraction.
Commit to the thousand days. I want to leave
you with one final thought. Consider the concept
of inbound deal flow versus cold outreach. When
you start in the easy bucket, you're chasing
clients. You are knocking on doors. But if you
build a reputation, if you build that personal
brand we talked about in the hard bucket, eventually
that dynamic flips. Opportunities you can't buy,
partnerships, deals, equity offers, they start
coming to you. That is the ultimate goal. That's
when the game becomes truly fun. Thank you for
listening to The Deep Dive. We'll see you next
time. See you.