Making Money with AI

We are now living in the age of AI; to thrive, we must learn how to leverage AI to generate income.

First and foremost, we need to identify who is paying us—only then can we determine the most effective ways to monetize AI.

One method I am familiar with involves earning revenue through advertisements on platforms like YouTube. Consequently, we can utilize AI to create short-form videos, or employ it to assist in the video production process (tasks such as scripting scenes, transcribing audio, voiceovers, automated editing, and so forth).

Another avenue involves operating “AI token gateways.” This entails collecting membership fees from users and acting as an intermediary for AI services. Aggregator sites—such as those for Codex, Cursor, Claude Code, ChatGPT, and Grok—allow ordinary users to select from a variety of different AI models. Revenue is generated by capitalizing on the price difference (or arbitrage) of the underlying AI tokens (since virtually all tech companies are currently pushing token-based models for AI programming, content generation, and similar applications). Put simply, this is a method of making money by boosting work efficiency.

Other opportunities include creating AI-generated novels, comics, websites, and more.

For the average person, who may not wish to tackle programming or set up their own token infrastructure, the most accessible approach is to engage in AI-assisted content creation—specifically short-form videos—and then monetize them through advertising revenue on platforms like YouTube (via the YPP) or TikTok.

AI Video

AI video production can be further categorized into several specific sub-fields:

Examples include speech-to-subtitle conversion, subtitle-to-speech synthesis, transforming images and audio into digital avatars, video background removal, vocal isolation, video upscaling (enhancing resolution), voice cloning, text-to-video generation, automated editing, and more.

My current understanding of this field is still somewhat limited; at present, my primary focus and application lie in text-to-video generation.

I have observed YouTube creators attempting to use AI to replicate the style of short-form videos that have already garnered millions of views. While these attempts retain a degree of originality, they leverage AI to significantly accelerate the production workflow—a strategy that has successfully enabled them to capture massive amounts of traffic with their short-form content.

Although it may not be possible to replicate their exact results, their methods certainly serve as a valuable reference point.

Currently, the most popular tools in this space are Hermes and OpenClaw. These platforms can effectively function as “digital employees,” automating and executing specific tasks exactly as you desire.