There's a lot of AI businesses you can

start in 2026 and every day there's a

new business model or new way to make

money with AI, but most of them are a

complete waste of time. My name is JP

and I've done over $25 million with my

AI business over the last 7 years. I've

worked with two of the biggest gym

franchises in America, Anytime Fitness

and Exponential Brands, which owns a ton

of other franchises and my business

partner is the second largest operator

of Anytime Fitness Gyms in the world. I

also own equity in an Agentic AI

platform that has went through Y

Combinator. The point is, I've been

through it all and I've seen a lot. So

today, I'm going to rank every AI

business model you can start in 2026

from worst to best. And I'll tell you

which one requires luck to work and

which one you should never touch and the

one that I've been running to make

millions. Let's get into it. And so here

we are at the tier board of wisdom. And

so the way that we're going to do this

is first I'm going to break down a

little bit about what the business model

entails and exactly how it works and

operates. And then from there, I'm going

to talk a little bit about the six

categories that you really want to look

for when it comes to starting a

business. First one's capital. How much

money do you actually need to do it?

Second one is what is the skill ceiling

or skill cap? How competent do you

really need to be to get it off the

ground? Third is how long does it take

to initially start making money? Four is

profit. How much work compared to how

much profit you're going to actually

make or how much expenses and team

members and software and cost compared

to what you actually make. And then five

is competition. And then six is just

retention. So, how long do you actually

retain the people that you're working

with or the the product you're selling

or service you're selling? So, let's

just go ahead and start with the one

that everybody's obsessed with right

now, which is AI agents. So, what

actually is it? You sell an AI agent to

a business, a chatbot, a lead follow-up

bot, or a lead generation agent,

something like that. It's basically

one-dimensional. It's a one AI worker

that does one singular job. And people

think that this is the future, the most

advanced, most valuable thing you can

sell. So they assume it has to be the

best business model you could operate.

But this is just something people tend

to overhype. It happened with inadin and

then aogenic workflows and now it's AI

[music] agents. It's kind of the same

thing over and over again. And there's

real demand for some of the AI agents

you can build because they solve very

real problems that businesses

experience. And businesses genuinely

want this right now because AI is top of

mind and every owner is scared of

getting left behind and their

competition picking up on the trends

that they don't pick up on soon enough.

But the thing is this, it's still just

one automation. It's kind of like you're

plugging one hole in a leaky bucket that

has a lot of holes in it. So, what I

kind of want you to do is think of

business like a bucket full of holes.

One agent plugs one of these holes. The

water still pours out of a ton of

different holes within the bucket. So,

they don't value it that much, right?

The business owner doesn't actually

value just one dimensional AI agents

that much. And they don't stick around

for long. They don't justify continuing

to pay it for months on end or years on

end. And all my early clients would stay

a few months then leave because I sold

them one thing and one thing's very easy

to cancel. And so now what I kind of

want to talk about now that I've talked

about what it actually is is these six

things. So it's very minimal in terms of

capital typically just usage and

software of these to do basic AI agents.

Skills needed not high. It's very very

low. Time to money can be very quick

very easy to deploy. The hardest part is

going to be a be getting a business

owner to actually say yes actually

marketing and selling it. And then

profit can be extremely high. But the

issue with it is because you're

providing a one-dimensional thing you

typically can't charge a lot of money.

So, I'd imagine you probably see a lot

of people talking about AI receptionist.

Matter of fact, right, let me show you

an example of a video right here, right?

You got this guy on YouTube saying, "I

sold 87 AI receptionist in 30 days, 4.97

a month." And this is an example of a

guy that's grifting. He's actually a

fraud. He's claiming to make a bunch of

money doing this when in reality, this

is his landing page that he drives

everyone to to learn how to start an AI

business. And then here is his AI

business and the reviews for it. If I go

to lowest rating, what you can kind of

see is someone saying it's a scam and

then you can see them talking about it

being a course, right? And so I'll get

to that in a little bit about AI

information, coaching, consulting, and

what you need to look out for. But the

main thing here is you're not able to

charge a ton of money simply because

it's not going to be something you can

charge a lot of money for. And it's very

one-dimensional. And then in addition to

that, the competition is extremely high,

right? You've got people like this

talking about it and tons of people

talking about it and a lot of people

trying to sell it to businesses, which

is okay if you have a competitive edge

or you have something up your sleeve.

But if you're just selling an AI

receptionist, if you're just selling an

AI chatbot, if you're just selling a

GPT, right, something like that that

helps with accounting, a P&L, right?

stuff like that, an auditor, it's not

going to be easy to retain people

because other people are going to come

in with multi-dimensional things that

are going to be able to very easily kick

you out and remove you as a customer.

And for that reason, I'm going to put it

at Ctier. And so, the next one is a

business that most people consider

passive income. Typically, that's how

people talk about it in that type of

context. And it's AI e-commerce. And so

this is using AI to build and run online

stores where AI writes the product page,

builds the store, makes the ads,

basically drop shipping 2.0. Easy to

start, but easy to start doesn't mean

easy to win. And it has a very low

barrier of entry. And there are tools

out there that make everything very

easy. And you can start today if you

want, but that's also the problem. The

saturation is extremely difficult. It's

brutal. And if AI makes it easy for you

to launch a store, it makes it just as

easy for 10,000 other people to launch

the exact [music] same store as you to

literally copy and paste it because

you're competing with everyone on Earth

and it's a race to the bottom on price

because it's a total commodity. And it's

what happened with drop shipping. It was

a gold rush then it got so crowded the

margins continuously evaporated because

people just copy and copy and copy and

commodity commodity race to the bottom.

And so that's basically what AI

e-commerce is. But the one thing with

ecom is you have to know what business

you're in. And ecom is a marketing

business. That's pretty much all you're

doing in ecom is you're just marketing a

product, right? And so you're really

building a brand. If if you want to

become a successful ecom business, you

got to build a brand. And building a

brand is not exactly AI, right? And so

you just got to understand that in

addition to that, number one, it

requires a ton of capital because you

have to invest a lot of money into

marketing. And then in addition to that,

you typically have to have product,

right? Right? Because ecom is just

physical product. So you have to buy

product. Skill needed. The skill needed

when it comes to ecom is extremely high

because you have to be exceptional at

marketing and finding products that

haven't yet gotten saturated or you have

to know how to premiumly market and

advertise them which can be very very

difficult if you're not experienced. And

if you get into it without experience,

you can end up getting wrecked because

it's very expensive to get into. Time to

money can be extremely quick if you're

good at marketing. profit is typically a

lot lower unless you're doing a premium

type of a brand. But even still, you

have a a big expense in marketing and a

big expense in product. The ecom

businesses that really thrive, right?

Are the ones that grow organically

through word of mouth, right? Think of

brands like Red Bull, Alani, Vitamin

Water, right? Like those are ecom brands

that have done exceptionally well. a lot

of um new neutropics, you know,

vitamins, things like that that actually

get people good results that everyone's

talking about because they're getting

real results or they really love the

product, right? That's where you see

these massive massive profits, but those

are always supercharged by brand. Kind

of like Gym Shark, right? All

influencer-based organic content

marketing that was done. And that's

really how a lot of these brands are

still built. So, it's just a very

in-depth business model that if you

really want to get to the top, it's not

easy at all. And there is an insane

amount of competition. And the only way

you're going to be able to retain

customers is if you create a brand, a

cultlike brand, and your product has to

be exceptional because it is so

competitive. And so because of that, I'm

going to give it a A simply because

there is so much potential, but the

difficulty is exceptionally high and you

pretty much need to have a organic skill

to be able to get it there. And when I

say organic skill, know how to build a

brand. And so this next one is really

boring and nobody really made hype

videos about it except for one person,

my buddy, but it's a good place to

start. And so it's AI websites. And so

this is building and selling AI

generated websites to local and small

businesses and that's it, right? Just

providing a website. Most people write

it off as a quick simple service anyone

can sell. But here's what they miss. The

demand is real and it's constant. A lot

of these businesses, a lot of these

local business owners have no idea what

they're doing when it comes to their

website. So, every business needs a

website. Entry is easy and it's a legit

way to start making money and build

trust with clients if you're just

getting started. The catch is the

ceiling. It's low ticket. It's very easy

to copy and it's still one service and

it solves one problem. You can make some

money on the side, but you'll end up

capping out and someone can always

undercut you, which I'm seeing happen a

lot. And on top of that, people are

starting to understand how easy it is to

sell and build a website to local

businesses. So, the price you can charge

will continue to shrink and shrink and

will continue to get commoditized if you

don't know how to pivot or have a

competitive edge. One thing I'll also

say is I've had a lot of people recently

come to me that do this. And I even had

one person in particular, which was kind

of crazy. And he was making over 100

grand a month doing this and he's now

making less than 10 grand a month

because he doesn't know how to pivot.

All he does is provides websites. That's

it. And he's having other competitors

come in and build better websites than

him and charge way less money. And then

he's even having his customers, not a

lot of them, but some of his customers

that are building their own website. And

so you got to be hard to replace. And if

you're just providing a website, you're

not. But when we look at this from the

standpoint here of how much money does

it take to start, it does not take a lot

of money to start it. It's very minimal.

The skills needed are not a lot. The

first one's going to be pretty

difficult. But from there, it gets easy

and easy. And if you're providing the

same website to the same business, let's

say like like a gym owner like to a

CrossFit gym, CrossFit gym, CrossFit

gym, it's pretty much going to be the

same website switching in colors, their

logo, their brand stuff. That's it,

right? So, it's very very easy once you

know how to do it. Time to money, it can

be very quick, but again, you have to

know how to market and sell it. You have

to be competent at doing that. And if

you're just selling a website, it's very

difficult to sell it for a premium rate.

Typically, you're you're going to

struggle to sell it for any more than

$297. And that's even becoming difficult

for some people. and profit. This is

another difficult one. Since you're

charging such little money, you have a

lot of expense in marketing as you start

to scale this business in cold callers

or running ads. And since you're

charging such little money, it's a

volume game, right? If you're familiar

with Planet Fitness where they charge

like $9.99 a month, they make money when

they have like 8,000 members. That's

like where they start making money,

right? So, it's just a massive, massive

volume game, but it's a marketing game,

right? Planet Fitness has really great

marketing and massive budgets. They're

backed by tons of PE companies. is if

you're trying to do websites, you got to

have a lot of money to deploy to really

really scale it if you want to scale it

to a big big point. The competition is

definitely there, but it's not as

competitive as some of these other ones.

And then the retention on it is very

high, but it's not high if you're just

providing a website. If you're just

providing a website, you're not doing

anything with paid paid advertising,

SEO, consulting, integrating AI into

their business in other various ways.

It's it's not that sticky because these

business owners are being reached out to

all the time. And if you're just doing

that, they're going to speak to somebody

that can do that and probably a handful

of other things that will end up

removing them and replacing them. And so

for that reason, I'd put the AI websites

as a C tier as well. Okay, let's talk

about AI SAS. Building your own AI

software sounds like the dream. I've

definitely thought about it. Build it

once, sell it forever, over and over

again. If you catch the right thing,

it's a real asset you can keep building

on and make serious money from. But the

trap is the edge is disappearing. AI now

lets almost anyone spin up a competing

tool just by describing what they want.

So it actually gets riskier the better

AI gets. I can literally tell you a

story. My girlfriend built a tool, an AI

software that was built by a 8 figureure

company in like a couple minutes. It's

not perfect, but it's like 90% of the

way there. So every update makes it

easier for someone to clone your

software in an afternoon. And Seth Coden

said it best in a crowded market fitting

in is failing. So AI SAS is not an easy

one. And what I will say about it is,

you know, when it comes to the money

required to start a SAS, obviously it's

it's easier now with AI, but typically

to really get a business like this off

the ground and really get it out there,

it requires a lot of money. And in

addition to that, if you're trying to

vibe code it and it breaks and you don't

know how to actually code, you're going

to typically need a founder that is very

good at writing code or you yourself

need to be very competent at writing

code, not vibe coding, so that you can

debug things as they come up and make it

different. Because if you're just vibe

coding it, then it's already out there.

And if it's already out there, the only

way you can compete is with brand. And

if you're just getting started and you

don't know how to build a brand, then

you're you're [ __ ] right? Skill

needed very high. like it it is very

high. It's gotten a lot easier, but it's

still very high. Time to money typically

a very long time because you're charging

so little typically for these SAS

platforms, right? Couple hundred bucks,

potentially even a couple bucks, right,

for a monthly fee if it's B toC or B2B.

Typically higher if you're providing it

to businesses, typically a lot less if

it's just to consumers. Profit can be

insanely high, but only if the marketing

is on point and it's growing

organically. And the only way that it

can really grow organically is if it's

an exceptional product or service,

right? That's the only way these things

really grow. And for it to be

exceptional, it has to be unique. It has

to be different. And it has to be super

dialed in. And so if you're just

starting out, it's not to say that you

can't do that. It's just it it's going

to be very difficult, right? And then

the competition is typically extremely

high. It's typically very competitive.

However, if you can create a product for

a new market or a new SAS for a new

market, which new markets are being

created like crazy nowadays, obviously

you could be one of the first movers,

right? Which has big benefits as well.

Retention is incredible, but the thing

here with SAS is, you know, a lot of

people think all SAS has great

retention, but that's not true. Just

because it's a SAS doesn't mean it has

great retention. The SASes that you know

about like go highle, like HubSpot,

right? They have great retention because

they are great softwares period, right?

There were literally thousands of other

softwares that tried to compete with

them that didn't hit the mark, right?

That just were not as good. And when you

look at companies like that, these are

companies that have thousands of data

scientists and software developers,

right? Like they are not messing around

and they're absolutely obsessed on the

user experience and the retention. And

so that is the name of the game in SAS.

And that means you have to be very very

experienced or have a lot of money to

deploy. And ideally, you really want

both. And so, for that reason, I'm going

to give it a B just because it could be

great, right, for a veteran, but for

someone just starting out, it's

something you really want to avoid. Now,

one thing I will say about SAS that is

really unique and beneficial is the fact

that you could sell it for a crazy

multiple. You can exit it for a ton of

money, right? So, that is one big

benefit of SAS, but it obviously has all

of those downsides. But speaking of

selling a company for millions, let me

tell you something real quick. I'm

looking to sell my AI business, gym

members now, and I got it valued and it

was valued at over $5 million. But my

broker told me that if I helped three to

four other people build the same thing

and then roll it into a portfolio, we

could sell it for 8 to 15 times more

than I'd be able to get independently

selling it on my own, which would take

my business from being worth around $5

million to $10 to $15 million for no

extra work for me or my team. just

helping other people do what I've

already done in different verticals

outside of the gym space. And if you

want to become my partner and build a

sevenfigure AI business like mine, you

can click the link in the description.

We'll hop on a one-to-one call where

I'll be able to figure out if I think

you're a good fit or not to work with

me. And if you are, great. If not, no

big deal. You can continue to watch the

channel, get value, and learn a whole

lot. Now, let's get back to the ranking.

Okay. Now, here's one people get

completely wrong, which is AI

information, things like consulting,

coaching, school communities. The

mistakes here isn't selling information.

There's nothing wrong with selling

information. The mistake is selling

information about something you've never

actually done. Half the internet thinks

it's easy. Passive info product money.

The other half thinks it's all a

complete scam. If you've genuinely done

it and you stay honest, this is

incredibly easy to package, has high

margins, and it's something people want,

right? But it only works if it's real.

The second you're teaching something you

haven't actually done that you actually

don't have experience in, you become the

exact liar that I call out in my videos.

When I started, I spent $997 on a guru

course that taught me literally nothing.

And it was my grandpa's last Christmas

gift that he gave to me before he passed

away. So, don't be that guy because if

someone has this experience with you,

they'll let everyone know and your whole

reputation will be damaged forever,

right? Anything that goes on the

internet is there forever. And so, one

thing I just want to bring up, right,

going back to this guy here, this is

what it looks like, right? people

talking about like I sold all these AI

receptionists in 30 days when in reality

the guy doesn't even have a real

business. All of these links take you to

if you're reading this in mid August,

you could have a thriving AI business,

right? It's talking about that. It's not

like he has a real business. You go to

his agency vault, it's talking about

this. If we just go to newest, you can

see here, help me understand and show me

where the problem was like it was very

helpful, right? Even the reviews he's

getting don't make any sense. It's not

about providing services to local

businesses. It's about him teaching

people how to build a business, right?

where if you go to my business's reviews

and I go to newest, what you're going to

see is people talking about their

experience while working with us and

exactly how we've helped them through

the AI services that we provide, right?

Like that's all you're going to see is

people talking all about that. And so

going back to this, right, you want to

watch out for that. Obviously, you want

to validate the people that you're

getting your information from. But going

back to this as far as an offer, if

you're just getting started, right, just

don't do it. Do not be that guy that's

full of [ __ ] When you look at the

capital required to do something like

this, it's very little money. It's very

labor intensive, right? Making videos

and doing [ __ ] like what I'm doing right

here, it takes a lot of time, right?

Like it does take a lot of time. The

skills needed for it are basically

minimal, right? Because if you're

talking about something that you know

and have a lot of experience in that

isn't difficult, right? Me doing this is

not hard because this this is all I

know. This is what I've done my whole

entire professional career. It's the one

thing I know the most about the time to

money. It can take a very long time for

something like this to make money

because typically these businesses are

grown organically. And if you're not

talking about something that you don't

know about, typically, right, people

aren't going to watch. There are the

occasional people like someone like this

where they do watch, right? But the

majority of people do not. Profit. It

can be very high, but it's not like a

real business. It's a very fleeting

business. These businesses that are all

info, right? Cuz it's typically not

reoccurring. And once you buy

information, you have the information.

You don't need to keep buying things.

With my agency, Gym Rumbers Now, I have

customers that have been with me for

years and years and years. people who

have been with me literally for over 5

years because we're so ingrained and

integrated into their business that if

we were to leave they wouldn't know what

to do right so they don't leave they

just keep paying us the profit I think I

just went over that the competition it

can be very very high and then the

retention on it again is almost

non-existent because you're selling

information and once people get the

information they no longer need it and

so I will say you know this could be

like a B tier I'm actually going to give

it a [ __ ] D tier you know what

because I think so many people do it

improperly and I've invested over a

million dollars in information. I would

not be here if I had not invested money

in information. But since I got screwed

over early on the first time I invested

in information, I had a very sharp eye

for any money I invested into

information and did my research and due

diligence before investing into people.

And so because of that, I make sure the

people I give money to are people that

are actually competent at the thing I'm

trying to learn. And it's helped me a

lot. Right? When you do do that, you're

able to cut through a lot of trial and

error that you would have to go through

on your own that that person's already

done. So, this next one is probably the

most popular right now, which is AI

content creation. And this is building a

brand around AI content where you're

uploading videos, growing an audience,

then you're monetizing it through

sponsors, ad revenue, or funneling the

traffic to a product. And so, building

an AI brand can absolutely make you

money. The sponsors alone are real. The

only question is how long the window is

actually going to stay open to be able

to do this. And honestly, it's one of

the most profitable ones right now. The

AI wave is carrying a ton of attention

everywhere. The problem is how many

people are about to notice this. The

competition is turning brutal really,

really fast. And everyone's catching on

to how profitable it is. And on top of

that, you have to learn AI and how to

make very good content. You need a lot

of time and patience before you can get

paid. And if AI as a topic stops being

the trend, those paychecks will pay less

and less money. So AI content creation

is kind of an interesting one. But what

I will say is what I think is going to

happen with this is I think eventually

AI content creation is going to get

regulated by the government which is

going to make it a lot more difficult.

And a lot of people are starting to just

not like AI content in general just

because it's not real. And I think

people feel like they're getting

tricked. And this is in my own

experience and this is what I hear

people say when we're looking at capital

to do something like this. It's not

high. Skills needed are high to actually

be able to do this well. In addition to

that, time to money can be very, very

quick. It can be highly profitable.

Competition is starting to become very,

very big. And retention is, you know,

you just got to continue to be able to

get views. So, if you're very good at

that, it can be. But I I think this is

going to be one of those things where

there's a lot of opportunity right now.

I think it's not a long-term play,

right? If you want to make some quick

money knowing you're going to have to do

something else in the future, be my

guest. That's not anything I have any

interest in. I'm in I'm a long-term

player. Um, and I want to do things that

I know are going to be around in the

next decade, multiple decades, and this

is not it. And so, AI content creator

for me would probably be a D tier. Okay.

Now, the one that I've bet my entire

career on and the one that I've been

able to make over $25 million with, it's

AI systems. This is selling a complete

AI system to a business, which really

gets integrated where you're doing

multiple services connected into how a

business gets and keeps their customers.

Instead of just selling one AI employee,

you sell an entire department. And

here's why this is the best business

model right now in my opinion. You build

it once, then you copy and paste it for

every client after that, just like a

conveyor belt, and then it plugs every

hole in the leaky bucket at the same

time. So the client can't fire it

without firing an entire department,

which means they stay there for a very

long time. And in my case, I've had

clients that have stayed with me for

over 5 years. You can charge a lot more

money, typically 5 to 10 times more than

a single one-dimensional AI automation.

and it has no direct competitors because

nobody else packages it in the way that

I package it in and provide it in. I

sold single automations before and

clients left. I switched to selling the

full system and then I built a $25

million AI agency with clients who have

stayed for a very long time. And it's

not just me. I have beginners that are

copying the exact system in totally

different niches. My brother Mackey did

it in dance studios and hit seven

figures in months. Tommy did it in

Australian Gems and hit 12K in about 42

days. And Jason, a 23-year-old, did it

in home services, helping contractors

that sell generators, and he had 11K a

month in 30 days. So AI systems is a

very, very good one to do. And when

we're looking at capital required, it's

very low. Skills needed very low time to

money. It can be very quick. And the

thing with this is again to make money

with this, you have to be good at

marketing and sales. However, when

you're providing a system, specifically

the system I sell, it's very easy to

market it and it's very easy to sell it

because it's so logical. It just makes

so much sense for the business owner

when everyone's selling an AI

receptionist and then I'm selling an AI

receptionist. I'm selling a website. I'm

selling an AI agent that nurtures the

leads that come through the website. I'm

selling an AI agent that gets reviews

from the business's customers. I'm

selling an AI agent that generates

referrals for the business. I'm running

an AI agent that then nurtures their

dead leads in their database that they

haven't reached out to. I'm giving them

a GPT that trains them on how to

actually sell the people that are coming

through their door and role plays with

their staff and reviews their sales

consultations. And then I'm running

hyperargeted ads that are then being

nurtured. The leads generated through

the ads are being nurtured through AI.

When I'm doing all of that, right, what

that ultimately makes marketing and

selling it very easy because what I'm

doing is something that nobody else is

doing. And if nobody else is doing it,

these business owners have never

received it. So these business owners

are paying for almost a variation of it.

So if I'm selling something that is a

much larger system, it makes it very

easy to sell. And the way I kind of like

to explain it is think about the iPhone,

right? I was in fifth grade when the

iPhone came out. Phones existed before

the iPhone. There wasn't anything super

special about the iPhone. But what Steve

Jobs and Apple did with the iPhone is

they innovated so well on a product that

had so much demand. The market already

existed. Cell phones, telephones,

obviously something that everyone needs

and benefits from, right? Being able to

talk to people all over the world. But

what Steve Jobs did so well is he made a

revolutionary phone. He made a much

better phone than all the other phones

and he consolidated the market. That's

all I'm doing with this. I've just taken

a bunch of all of the services that used

to require manual work, automated the

majority of it with AI and built a

system that really makes a lot of sense

in the order that we deployed in that

gets my customers very good results and

it's something that they've never really

been sold before, but they have already

purchased a variation of it, which makes

it very easy to sell. And then when we

look at competition, there's

competition, but when you're selling

something like this and you know how to

sell it in a way and provide it in a way

where the business owner has never

received it before, you basically don't

have competition. And then the retention

of it is extremely high because people

stay for a very long time because it's

so integrated into their business. And

for that reason, I give it an S tier

because if you're a beginner just

starting out and you don't have a lot of

experience in most of this stuff, just

like me when I got started, I was a

college dropout. I started in my mom's

basement. I had no idea what to do or

how to make money. I had no real skills.

I had no experience. I was a lifeguard,

a security guard before, and I got fired

from both those jobs. So, I had no

experience in building a business or

entrepreneurship. This is it because

it's by far your best bet to make money

if you're trying to make money with AI

and build a business having come from

nothing like me. Now, AI systems are

definitely the best thing to sell, but

not all AI systems are worth building.

If you want a successful AI business,

there is one system that every business

needs and will pay thousands each month

to have because it solves the biggest

problem that every business has and will

continue to have in the next 10 years to

come. And it's exactly what I sell on my

$25 million AI agency. If you want to

know what this system is, watch this

video right here where I break down

exactly how it works. I'll see you in

the next one.