If you've been searching for how to make money with AI, you've probably seen two kinds of answers. One says AI will make you rich while you sleep. The other is a list of thirty ideas with nothing real behind any of them.
Here's the short answer I'd give a friend: AI doesn't pay you. A business does. AI helps you do the work of that business faster, whether that's writing, making videos, setting up a funnel, or serving a client.
I've been doing affiliate marketing for more than five years, mostly in the evenings and at weekends around a day job.
These days I use AI almost every day while building my blog, my short videos, and my email setup. Below are seven practical ways to make money with AI, what I've actually tried, and where I'm still learning.
Affiliate disclosure: some links in this article are affiliate links. If you sign up through one, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
What making money with AI actually means
When I started using AI more seriously in my online work, I thought the biggest benefit would simply be speed. It did save me time.
But I quickly learned that faster content doesn't automatically mean a better business. I still had to decide what to publish, which tools were worth paying for, how to get traffic, and what I wanted the reader to do next.
So when I say making money with AI, I mean this: you pick a real way to earn, and you use AI to do parts of it faster or better. Most ways to earn follow the same chain.
Someone finds your content, gets something useful from it, trusts you a little more, and eventually takes up a recommendation or an offer. AI can help at almost every step of that chain. It can't replace the chain.
Can beginners really make money with AI?
Yes, but probably not the way the ads promise.
AI makes starting much easier. When I made my first short videos, I didn't hire a writer or a voice actor. I worked out the scripts with ChatGPT, created the voice in ElevenLabs and put the videos together myself.
The catch is that everyone else has the same tools. So the advantage isn't the tool, it's your judgment: what you make, who it's for, and whether it genuinely helps someone. Expect months, not days. If you're completely new, my Start Here guide walks through the basic build order first.
7 practical ways to make money with AI
These are the seven I think make the most sense for a beginner. The ones I've worked with myself come first.
1. Affiliate marketing with AI
Affiliate marketing is where I started, long before AI was part of it. You recommend a product, and if someone buys through your link, you earn a commission.
AI helps me with the work around a recommendation: comparing offers, planning content around one product, and drafting reviews or emails that I then rewrite in my own words. What it can't do is make people trust a link.
Dropping links into posts and hoping for clicks rarely works. People click when you've helped them first and been honest about why something is worth their money. I only recommend tools I actually use, and I'd suggest you do the same.
If you want to go deeper, ClickBank for Beginners covers one of the most popular networks. If you'd like a place to keep learning and connecting around affiliate marketing, you're welcome to take a look at Hariri's Affiliate Advantage.
2. Blogging and SEO content
A blog is slow, but it keeps working long after you hit publish. Before writing this article, I checked the keyword in Ubersuggest.
It showed thousands of monthly searches and only low difficulty, so it was worth the effort. Then I looked at what already ranked and used AI to help shape the outline.
AI is great for the parts I find tedious: outlines, headings, meta descriptions, tidying a messy paragraph.
But I don't publish anything it writes until I've read it, changed it, and added my own experience. Search results are already full of AI articles that all say the same thing.
The part worth reading is the part only you can add. I publish on WordPress and use Rank Math to check the on-page basics.
3. YouTube Shorts and Reels
Short videos are where I've spent a lot of my time lately. I make vertical Shorts about affiliate marketing for my SoftHustleLab brand and post them to YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels.
One Short takes more steps than most people expect: picking a topic, checking keywords, writing and trimming the script, producing the voice, building the video, making a thumbnail in Canva, then writing the title, description, and tags. AI speeds up several of those steps. It doesn't let you skip any of them.
The scripts that felt best were the simple ones. Open with a question, share one real mistake, give one lesson. One of mine starts with "Can I share something I wish I'd understood earlier?" It's still early days for these videos, so I won't pretend they've taken off.
4. AI voiceovers and avatar videos
Not everyone wants to be on camera. I created a voice in ElevenLabs that I call Wandy Voice, and I've used it on real SoftHustleLab videos.
More recently, I connected that voice to HeyGen with an API key, picked an avatar, and tested turning a 40- to 45-second script into a vertical video with captions. It works, and I've made real Shorts this way, but I'm still learning the workflow.
Two things I've noticed so far. Avatar videos use up credits faster than I expected, so keep an eye on them. And be open that the voice or presenter is AI-generated.
YouTube, for example, asks creators to disclose realistic altered or synthetic content. Trust is the whole point, so don't trade it for a shortcut.
If you want to try the voice side, ElevenLabs is where I'd start. You can try ElevenLabs here.
5. AI-assisted freelance services
I haven't sold freelance services myself, so treat this one as an option rather than my story.
It's still worth knowing about, because businesses already pay for this kind of work: short video scripts, voiceovers, simple Shorts, edited blog posts, Canva graphics, a basic funnel setup.
AI helps you deliver faster. Your value is knowing what good looks like and checking the work before it goes out. Be upfront that you use AI. Most clients care about the result, not whether you typed every word.
6. Digital products
A digital product is something you make once and deliver many times: a checklist, a template, a short guide.
I recently put together a free checklist for my readers, The Affiliate Build Order Checklist, with AI helping on the structure and wording. I don't sell it; I use it to invite people onto my email list. But the steps are the same as for a paid product.
Decide who it's for, make it genuinely useful, keep the design simple, and deliver it automatically. A clear five-page checklist beats a hundred-page ebook nobody finishes.
7. Email marketing and funnels
If I could keep only one lesson from my years in affiliate marketing, it would be this: build a way to stay in touch with people.
Years ago I ran paid ads and sent people straight to sales pages. When the ads stopped, everything stopped. I didn't even have a way to say hello to the people who had visited.
So now everything I make points to an email list. I use Systeme.io for my landing pages, forms, automation and emails.
For this blog, I verified my domain and my hello@haririabdullah.com sender address, then set up a simple flow: someone asks for the free checklist and gets a short series of emails over the following week.
AI helped me draft those emails, and I edited them until they sounded like me.
To be clear, that setup is brand new. It works, but it hasn't been running long enough for me to tell you how it performs.
For the step-by-step version, I've written about building an email list for affiliate marketing, and there's more in my Email Marketing & Funnels section.
My real AI workflow
Here's how the tools fit together for me right now. It isn't perfect, and I'm still adjusting it, but it's the one I actually use.
- Idea and keyword. A question my audience asks, checked in Ubersuggest.
- Script or outline. Drafted with ChatGPT, or with Claude for longer documents and checklists.
- Voice. Produced in ElevenLabs with Wandy Voice.
- Video. Turned into a vertical avatar video in HeyGen, the newest part of my setup.
- Graphics. Thumbnail and simple graphics in Canva.
- Publish. Videos to YouTube Shorts, Facebook Reels and Instagram Reels; articles to my WordPress blog.
- Capture. Each piece points to a free resource, and Systeme.io collects the email and sends the follow-up.
AI shows up in almost every step, but I'm the one making the decision at each of them.
AI tools I personally use
You don't need all of these to start. This is simply my honest list, so you know what I'm actually using.
| Tool | What I use it for | How far I've gone with it |
|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | Ideas, planning, scripts, emails, troubleshooting WordPress and Systeme.io | Almost every day; my main working assistant |
| Claude | Long documents, checklists, structured drafts | My choice for the bigger writing and planning jobs |
| ElevenLabs | AI voiceovers with my Wandy Voice | Used on real SoftHustleLab videos |
| HeyGen | Vertical avatar videos for Shorts and Reels | Set up and tested with my ElevenLabs voice; still learning |
| Canva | Thumbnails, social graphics, simple video graphics | Thumbnails and visuals for my content |
| Ubersuggest | Keyword research and tracking | Used to plan my articles, including this one |
| Systeme.io | Landing pages, funnels, email automation | Running my funnels; the blog's email flow is newly set up |
| WordPress and Rank Math | Publishing and on-page SEO | Every article on this blog |
Whatever these tools give me, I still check it myself before it goes out: the facts, the tone, and whether it actually helps. And if money is tight, only pay for a tool once it solves a problem you genuinely have.
A simple 7-day starter plan
If you want to start this week, here's what I'd do in your shoes.
- Day 1: Pick one way to earn from the list above. Just one.
- Day 2: Decide who you want to help, and write down three problems they have.
- Day 3: Ask AI for ten content ideas around those problems, then pick the best three.
- Day 4: Create your first piece: a short video, a blog post or a sample of your service.
- Day 5: Edit it properly. Add your own example, cut anything generic, check every fact.
- Day 6: Publish it, or send it to one potential client.
- Day 7: Set up a simple way to capture interest, like a free sign-up form, and note what you learned.
It won't make you money in seven days. The point is to move from reading about AI to actually building something with it. My free ebook takes this further with a 30-day plan.
Common mistakes to avoid
The biggest one is treating a single prompt as the whole job. Publish whatever the AI gives you and you'll sound like everyone else.
Another is collecting tools instead of building. There's a new one every week, and I've felt that pull myself. Skipping the email list is a third, and I learned that one the expensive way.
Then there's hype. Don't promise results you haven't seen, and never let AI write testimonials or numbers for you. Your name is on it.
FAQs - How to Make Money With AI
Can you make money with AI for free?
You can start for free. ChatGPT and Canva both have free plans, and that's enough to test an idea. Once you get serious, you'll probably pay for a few tools. I do, and I've only kept the ones that earned their place.
Is making money with AI legit?
The tools are real, and so is the opportunity. What usually isn't legit is the promise of easy, fast, or guaranteed money.
How long does it take to make money with AI?
There's no fixed timeline. It depends on the method, the time you can give it and how consistent you are. A freelance service can pay sooner than a blog, which often takes months to bring in search traffic.
Do I need experience?
No, but you'll need to learn. AI makes the work easier; it doesn't remove the need to understand what you're doing.
Can I make money with AI videos on YouTube?
You can, but YouTube has its own requirements before it pays you directly, and it asks creators to disclose realistic AI-generated content. Check its current rules first. Many people also use videos to send viewers to an email list or an affiliate offer, which is what I'm doing.
The honest answer
So, how do you make money with AI? Choose one real way to earn, use AI to do parts of it faster, and keep your own judgment in charge.
It's less exciting than the headlines, but it's what has actually moved things forward in my own work.
I'm still learning and testing, and I'll keep sharing what I find. If you want the deeper version, with my full workflow, checklists and a 30-day plan, get my free ebook, How to Make Money With AI.
