4 mistakes everyone is making when looking for AI business ideas
+ 1033 Business Ideas database download
Not all ideas are good businesses.
In the age of AI, we’re witnessing an explosion of business opportunity. How can you identify the good ideas from the bad?
This is a unique time in business (and human history) and identifying the right opportunities changes all the time. Never has it been so important to predict market changes as it is today.
Unfortunately, many people are chasing after AI hype and trends.
Work with AI, not against it
Whilst jumping on trends can sometimes work for a short time, ultimately it leads to:
High-competition as many others enter the market
LLMs building the same functionality natively
Hype/trend dying and market moving on
But don’t worry. There is a better approach which allows you to craft an offering that avoids all these points and is much more likely to succeed.
Here are 4 questions to ask before starting any business:
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1. Could AI do this alone in 2 years?
This is the uncomfortable question nobody wants to ask, but you need to be honest with yourself here. Compare the capabilities of ChatGPT a year ago versus what it can do now. And the rate of improvement is just going up. So project that forward and ask yourself: will customers even need me for this in 2 years, or will they just use ChatGPT or whatever comes next?
If the answer makes you nervous, you’ve got two options. First, you can pick a different idea entirely. Or second, you can figure out what human element you can add that AI will never replace. Maybe it’s your specific industry knowledge. Maybe it’s the relationship you build with clients. Maybe it’s your taste and judgment calls. Whatever it is, make sure that piece is baked into your service from day one and focus on that as your Unique Selling Point now so that you can establish it. Don’t build a business that’s just you doing what AI does, but slower and more expensive. That’s not going to end well.
2. Does AI make me 10x more productive here?
If AI isn’t dramatically changing how you run this business, you’re basically competing the old way. And competing the old way means you’re up against everyone who’s been doing this for years, with established reputations and client lists.
You want AI to be your unfair advantage. It should let you do in an hour what used to take a day. It should let you handle ten clients when you could only handle two before. It should let you create in a week what used to take a month.
If you’re looking at a business idea and thinking “yeah, AI helps a bit,” that’s not enough. You want to be thinking “AI makes this completely different.” That’s when you know you’re onto something. That’s when you can move faster than the competition, charge less with higher margins, or deliver way more value than anyone expects. Without that multiplier effect, you’re just running a regular business in a world that’s moving really fast.
3. Can I deliver this without hiring?
This one’s critical if you actually want to stay solo. A lot of business ideas sound great until you realize they only work if you have a team. More customers means more work, which means you need to hire, which means you’re now managing people instead of running a business you enjoy.
AI should fundamentally change this equation. It should handle the stuff that would’ve required hiring a VA, a designer, a writer, or a developer. It should automate the repetitive work. It should scale the parts of your business that don’t need your specific brain.
Walk through what a typical work week looks like if you had five customers. Then repeat for ten customers. Then twenty. At what point do you absolutely need another person? If that point comes too early, you could be building a job, rather than a business. Utilize AI to minimize your hiring requirements.
4. Is the market learning to do this themselves with AI?
This is sneaky because it might not be obvious at first. Right now, you might be the expert who knows how to use AI to solve a problem. You can charge for that. But that expertise and technical setup is going to be absorbed into LLMs as the add agent functionality.
Even without that, every day, more people are learning to use ChatGPT, Claude, and whatever other tools come out. The tutorials are everywhere and the knowledge is spreading fast. So if your business is “I know how to use AI tool X to do thing Y,” you’re on borrowed time.
You need a moat. Something that keeps customers coming back to you even after they learn the basics. Maybe it’s that you’re faster because you’ve done it a hundred times. Or perhaps you have access to data or tools they don’t. Or maybe it’s relationships in an industry they can’t access.
The best moat is often combining AI with something that takes time to build. e.g
Deep knowledge of a specific industry
A reputation and network
Proprietary data or methods
Systems that took you months to build
If someone can watch a YouTube tutorial and compete with you in a week, you don’t have a business. You have a head start that’s about to disappear.
What to do instead
These questions might seem like they’re designed to kill your ideas. They’re not. They’re designed to save you time.
The goal isn’t to find the perfect idea that passes every test with flying colors. The goal is to think clearly about what you’re building before you spend six months on something that won’t work.
Here’s what actually works:
Find a real problem that people have right now
Make sure AI helps you solve it way faster or better than anyone else can
Add your own knowledge or experience or relationships on top of that
And build it in a way where you can stay solo if you want to
There are more opportunities to do this right now than there have ever been. AI isn’t killing solo businesses. It’s making them more possible. You can compete with agencies now. You can build things that used to require a team. You can move fast and test ideas in days instead of months.
Things are changing quickly. But that’s good news if you’re willing to move quickly too. The people who win aren’t the ones with the perfect plan. They’re the ones who start building, learn fast, and adjust as they go.
So stop overthinking it. Pick something, test it, and see what happens. You’ll figure out what works by trying things.
Stuck for ideas? Download our free idea database with 1033 ideas including pros + cons for each idea, startup costs, marketing strategies and actionable steps to launch. Download it here.
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The '10x productivity' question separates real AI opportunities from incremental improvements. This strategic filter is exactly what I help leaders apply in The Efficiency Playbook to build sustainable advantages.