Artificial intelligence has emerged as one of the most transformational technologies of our time. It is estimated that AI could contribute over $15 trillion to the global economy by 2030. There are tons of AI-based business ideas that truly have a huge potential.
This tectonic shift is also creating lucrative opportunities for entrepreneurs and innovators. By integrating AI into their products and services, startups are able to gain a competitive edge, unlock new revenue streams, and invent novel customer experiences. While talented workers are now looking for AI jobs without coding skills, entrepreneurs are looking for new ideas.
With computing power and data being democratized via cloud platforms, easy availability of development tools, and growing funding initiatives, AI startups are poised for scalable and profitable growth. This makes 2024 the best time to take your AI business idea and turn it into reality.
Why Should You Launch Your AI Business in 2024?
2024 will see a rapid acceleration in AI adoption, creating a $500 billion industry. People are not just using it for their work but also selling AI-generated digital products to make money.
As AI becomes a mainstream technology across industries, it opens massive opportunities for startups. Some of the key reasons to execute AI-based business ideas this year are:
- Computation power and data to train advanced models are easily and cheaply available through cloud platforms. This dramatically reduces barriers faced by AI startups earlier.
- Hundreds of APIs and no-code platforms allow building AI solutions without needing deep technical expertise. This allows you to quickly test product-market fit.
- The funding environment will remain strong with VC investments in AI rising. The technology is seen as highly scalable and profitable.
Businesses that strategically leverage AI to solve industry problems or enable new user experiences will be poised for exponential growth over the next 5 years. So, it is the right time to capture the early movers’ advantage.
12 Most Profitable AI-Based Business Ideas: Plans For Entrepreneurs In 2024
After taking a deep dive into the AI industry and its future prospects, we first shortlisted 56 AI-based business ideas. However, not every idea is feasible. So, here are the 12 best ideas that you can surely start this year.
1. AI-Powered Smart Home Management
Homes are getting smarter with AI-enabled devices, and there’s an opportunity to start a business that helps homeowners manage all their smart home technology in one place.
This can make life more convenient while also saving energy and improving security. The smart home management sector offers some of the best AI jobs for non-tech skills as well.
Business Plan: You can start a business that offers a centralized smart home management platform allowing users to connect and control their smart devices through a single app or web dashboard. There is high demand as smart homes gain popularity, but most devices still operate through separate apps.
Requirements: You’ll need strong software development talent to build the platform. Besides, you’ll also need business development skills to form partnerships with smart device manufacturers. Expect high initial investment but strong long-term profit potential as the smart home market grows.
How To Market: Build partnerships with smart home device makers to integrate your platform. You can also market directly to tech-savvy homeowners through digital ads and smart home enthusiast communities. Offer free trials to demonstrate value.
Expected Revenue: With a well-executed platform, you could see $500k yearly revenue within 2 years, scaling to multi-million by year 5 as your user base expands.
How To Start: It takes 6 months to set up operations. It will take another 6 to 8 months to build the product. Some of the most useful AI tools that can help you with this business are:
2. AI-Powered Talent Matching
You can leverage AI to build an intelligent talent-matching platform that automatically connects candidates with relevant job openings. It is one of the best AI-based business ideas to execute this year.
Business Plan: The platform uses AI to parse candidate resumes and job descriptions to understand skills. It then matches profiles with openings based on compatibility. You can charge subscription fees from recruiters and companies.
Requirements: You need AI developers to build matching algorithms and HR experts to refine the system. The initial investment would be around $30,000 to 40,000.
How To Market: Run LinkedIn ads targeting staffing agencies and large enterprises. Also, organize webinars showcasing success stories of companies that found top talent through your platform.
Expected Revenue: With 100 monthly active corporate customers at $500 per month, you can make $60,000 monthly revenue. In 5 years, it can scale to $5 million+ with more customers.
How To Start: You can launch the first version in 9 to 12 months. However, R&D can take more than a year if you are aiming for a sophisticated system. Helpful AI tools that you can use are:
3. AI-Powered Personalized Health Monitoring
You can use AI to provide customized health-tracking services to users to prevent lifestyle diseases. The entire health sector is now rapidly adapting to AI and generating some of the most in-demand AI jobs with high pay scales.
Business Plan: Offer wearables that continuously track vitals and a mobile app analyzing the data using AI. Provide personalized insights and real-time guidance to help users stay fit. Charge a monthly fee for access to the service.
Requirements: You need AI developers, healthcare experts to define rules, and physiologists to develop exercise plans. The initial investment would be $40,000 to 50,000.
How To Market: Run Facebook and Instagram campaigns showing how your solution simplifies health tracking. You can also partner with gyms, yoga studios, and fitness centers to cross-sell to their members.
Expected Revenue: With just 5,000 monthly active users at $20 per month, you can make $100,000 monthly. In 5 years, it can grow to $5 million+ with more subscribers and more coverage.
How To Start: You can launch the MVP in 6 months, given the fact that you have a great development team. Useful AI tools and sites for your business are:
4. AI-Powered Inventory Management
You can leverage AI to build an intelligent inventory management system for retailers to automate stock tracking and forecasting. There are hundreds of AI tools available to help you with this business. These tools allow fast development of the inventory management platform to sign up early customers.
Business Plan: The system uses AI and machine learning for demand prediction, optimal inventory allocation, and reorder alerts. You can charge a monthly fee from retail chains to use your software-as-a-service platform.
Requirements: You need AI developers to build the AI models and supply chain experts to define inventory rules. You also need a sales team that can build connections with large retail chains. The initial investment would be around $60,000 for the first year.
How To Market: Attend retail tech conferences to showcase your solution. Also, run LinkedIn and Facebook ads targeting operations managers of retail chains in your city.
Expected Revenue: With just 50 retailers as customers at $2,000 per month, you can make $100,000 monthly revenue. In 5 years, it can cross $10 million with more expansion.
How To Start: Developing the first prototype of your AI system can take 8 to 9 months, depending on the skill set of your team. Some of the most useful AI tools to build this business from scratch are:
5. AI-Powered Supply Chain Management
You can leverage AI to provide an intelligent platform for optimizing supply chain operations for manufacturing companies. This is one of the best AI-based business ideas that allow an end-to-end AI-based supply chain management solution.
Business Plan: The platform uses AI for demand forecasting, inventory optimization, logistics tracking, etc. You can charge a subscription fee from clients for using the software.
Requirements: You need AI developers, supply chain experts, and a sales team. The initial investment would be around $80,000 to 100,000.
How To Market: You must attend manufacturing tech events to showcase your solution. Also, run LinkedIn ads targeting operations heads of manufacturing firms in your region.
Expected Revenue: With 80 monthly subscribers at $4,000 per month, you can make $320,000 monthly revenue. In 5 years, it can cross $8 million with more expansion statewide.
How To Start: It takes around 12 months to develop the first version of your supply chain management system. Useful AI tools and sites for your business are as follows:
6. AI-Powered Financial Advising
You can use AI to provide personalized investment and money management advice to individuals based on their financial goals. This allows providing a personalized finance advising solution in a cost-effective manner to everyone.
Business Plan: Build a robo-advisor app asking users questions about income, expenses, risk appetite, etc., to suggest savings and investment products. This system should be able to analyze historical and real-time data to provide the right but personalized solution. Charge a monthly fee for access.
Requirements: You need AI developers to build the system, finance experts for recommendation rules, and salespeople to acquire users. The initial investment would be around $70,000 to $90,000, depending on the team you have.
How To Market: Run Google PPC and Facebook ads for your app targeted at working professionals. You can also partner with financial companies to cross-sell to their customers. It is also possible to give ads for your product to finance-related sites.
Expected Revenue: With 2000 monthly subscribers at $30 per month, you can make $60,000 in revenue monthly. In 5 years, it can grow to $5 million+ with more users. However, you need to maintain the quality of the product for the long term.
How To Start: You can launch the beta app of your financial advising system in 6 to 8 months. There are several AI tools that can help you build this business. Some of those are:
7. AI-Powered Customized eLearning
It is now possible to leverage AI to create smart eLearning platforms that offer tailored courses and training programs based on each learner’s strengths, weaknesses, and goals. It is one of the most lucrative AI-based business ideas for entrepreneurs who want to do something in the education field.
Business Plan: The platform tracks user activity and performance to understand interests and knowledge gaps. It then suggests relevant courses and customizes assessments and teaching methods. Charge subscription fees for access.
Requirements: You need AI developers, instructional designers, and a content team to create courses. The initial investment would be around $100,000 to $120,000, depending on the number of people in your core team.
How To Market: Attend ed-tech conferences and run LinkedIn ads targeting universities, tuition centers, and corporations. Offer free demos to decision-makers of the organizations. You can also tie up with course-selling platforms.
Expected Revenue: With 500 monthly enterprise users at $3,000/year plans, you can make $1.5 million in annual revenue. In 5 years, it can grow to $10 million+ with more expansion, courses, and a bigger team.
How To Start: Developing the prototype will take 10-12 months. You can use the following useful AI tools and platforms:
8. AI-Powered Energy Consumption Management
You can leverage AI to provide intelligent energy monitoring and optimization solutions for commercial buildings and factory setups. This allows providing a robust AI-based energy optimization solution to help companies improve sustainability while reducing costs.
With some in-demand AI skills, you can easily penetrate this energy solution industry that witnessed $60+ billion of total revenue in 2021.
Business Plan: The system uses IoT sensors and machine learning to track energy usage patterns. It gives actionable inputs to minimize wastage and lower energy costs. Charge subscription fees from clients to use the software.
Requirements: You need AI developers, energy management experts, and a sales team. The initial investment would be $150,000 for product development.
How To Market: You must attend smart infrastructure events to showcase your solution. It is also better to run LinkedIn ads targeting facility managers of manufacturing plants and large enterprises in your area.
Expected Revenue: With 150 monthly enterprise subscribers at $5,000 per month, you can make $750,000 in monthly revenue. In 5 years, it can cross $15 million with more companies and factories on board.
How To Start: Developing the beta version takes around 10 to 12 months. You may need 3-4 months on top of that to fine-tune your product. Useful AI tools and platforms are:
9. AI-Powered Patient Management
You can harness the power of AI to build intelligent platforms for hospitals and clinics to manage patient health records, diagnose diseases, and offer personalized treatment plans.
It is one of the AI-based business ideas that effectively can streamline hospital workflows while enabling personalized evidence-based care for better outcomes.
Business Plan: The platform digitizes patient medical history, scans reports using NLP to extract insights, and suggests evidence-based care pathways unique to each patient. You can charge a subscription fee from hospitals/clinics.
Requirements: You need AI developers, healthcare strategists, and salespeople to sell the software. The initial investment would be around $250,000.
How To Market: Exhibit your product at medical conferences and run LinkedIn ads targeting hospital CIOs and IT heads. You must also offer free demos to decision-makers to showcase value.
Expected Revenue: With 100 hospital subscribers at $2000/month, you can make $200,000 monthly revenue. In 5 years, it can grow to $20 million+ with more expansion.
How To Start: Developing the product takes 12 to 15 months on average. However, the R&D phase can take more time if you are aiming to build a sophisticated system. Some of the most useful AI tools are:
10. AI-Powered Marketing Strategy Maker
It is now possible to use AI to provide an intelligent platform for businesses to get customized marketing plans based on their target audience, products, and business goals.
This development allows providing an easy-to-use AI-powered marketing strategy maker for businesses to drive growth and get a better ROI.
Business Plan: The platform asks questions about the company, ideal customers, campaign objectives, etc. It then analyses market data to suggest optimal strategies across different channels like email, social media, SEO, etc. You can charge a monthly fee (subscription model) for access.
Requirements: You need AI developers to build the system and marketing experts to design questionnaires and set recommendation rules. The initial investment would be around $80,000 to $100,000.
How To Market: You must attend marketing tech conferences to demo the platform. Also, run LinkedIn and Facebook ads targeting founders of small businesses and startups in your region.
Expected Revenue: With 500 monthly SaaS subscribers at $150 per month, you can make $75,000 in monthly recurring revenue. In 5 to 8 years, it can grow to $5 million+ with more expansion.
How To Start: Developing the beta version can take 7 to 9 months, although a more complex system can take up to a year. Following are the useful AI tools and platforms that will help you with your business:
11. AI-Powered Security Solutions
You can use AI to provide intelligent video surveillance, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics solutions to improve safety and security for enterprises.
This innovative product will be delivering an end-to-end AI-based security solution to predict and prevent threats. You can even include AI chatbots to provide a direct communication channel in case of a security breach or fraud attempt.
Business Plan: The systems use computer vision and deep learning for real-time alerts and incident prevention without needing large teams to monitor video feeds. You can charge subscription fees for your software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.
Requirements: You need AI developers, security experts to define rules and integrations, and salespeople to acquire customers. The initial investment would be around $200,000.
How To Market: Attend security tech conferences and run LinkedIn ads targeting CISOs and facility heads of large companies in your region. Offer free demos to showcase the value of your product to decision-makers.
Expected Revenue: With 250 enterprise subscribers at $4,000 per month, you can make $1 million in monthly recurring revenue. In 5 years, it can grow to $15 million+ with global expansion. The chatbots for support also reduce operational costs.
How To Start: Developing the minimum viable product takes 15 to 18 months on average. Some useful AI tools and platforms are as follows:
12. AI-Powered Cybersecurity Solutions
You can use AI to deliver intelligent threat monitoring, malware detection, and data protection solutions for businesses and governments. It is one of the best AI-based business ideas to try, as global cybersecurity threats are rising rapidly.
This solution allows delivering cutting-edge managed security solutions for organizations to protect themselves against emerging cyber threats.
Business Plan: The systems use ML for real-time threat insights and behavior analytics to predict vulnerable points and automate responses with precision. You can charge yearly contracts for your security software/services.
Requirements: You need ethical hackers, AI developers, cybersecurity experts, and salespeople. Your team must have the right set of talented people with high-income skills. Initial investment would be around $300,000 for the first year.
How To Market: Exhibit your product at security conferences and run LinkedIn ads targeting CTOs/CIOs. You must highlight value props and case studies of protected clients. Offer free analysis of the threat landscape.
Expected Revenue: With 500 enterprise clients at $20,000 yearly contracts, you can make $10 million in annual revenue. In 5 years, it can grow to $50 million+ with global expansion and more services.
How To Start: Developing the MVP takes around 18 to 24 months, given the complexity of systems. Useful AI tools for your business are as follows:
How to Start an AI-Based Startup?
AI has made it possible for anyone to start a technology business without needing deep technical skills. You can now leverage easy-to-use, no-code AI tools to turn ideas into products. The AI field now has so much space that every industry now offers lucrative AI jobs for beginners.
With the exponential growth of AI, it has become easier than ever to build an AI startup, even if you don’t have a technical background. Here is a step-by-step guide to executing AI-based business ideas:
- Step 1: Research the market to identify problems that AI solutions can solve. Analyze demand for those products.
- Step 2: Based on feasibility and profitability, finalize a product that leverages machine learning/natural language/computer vision technology.
- Step 3: Use no-code AI platforms like Gradio and CreateML to build and test your minimum viable product without coding skills.
- Step 4: Create a landing page and run Facebook/Google ads targeting your ideal customer segments to validate the market.
- Step 5: With proof of concept and preliminary traction, raise a seed funding round to hire AI developers to quickly scale the product and business.
- Step 6: With more funding, focus on growth – expand the AI development team to train models on more data, optimize product-market fit, and enhance conversions.
This allows continuous improvement of the solution by leveraging AI and data while acquiring more customers to establish a profitable and sustainable startup.
How Much Does It Cost to Build And Launch An AI-based Business?
To build and launch an AI product, you need to invest in a technical team, infrastructure, marketing, and operations. There are many talented people available worldwide who are looking for high-paying AI jobs.
An approximate budget estimate to start an AI-based business from scratch is as follows:
- For a 5-member AI development team with 2 engineers, 2 data scientists, and a project manager, the average annual cost in the US would be $500,000.
- Cloud infrastructure on AWS/Azure for hosting solutions costs around $3,000 to 5,000 per month.
- The initial marketing budget should be $40,000, including digital campaigns and content creation.
- Legal, accounting, and miscellaneous costs would be $25,000.
The initial investment for the first 12 months to build a prototype, test it, and acquire the first set of customers can range from $800,000 to $1 million based on the product complexity and scale of operations.
Final Note
By tapping into the AI revolution to launch your business, you have the ability to scale revenue exponentially while positively impacting lives. AI-based business ideas have the intrinsic capacity for growth that traditional offerings lack. Whether it’s streamlining processes, uncovering insights from data, or automating decisions, AI unlocks boundless opportunities.
With plug-and-play solutions maturing by the day, capital and talent readily accessible, and the market embracing AI across domains, it is truly an opportune time to take your concept and achieve the ambitious vision. Start small, but think big. The growth pathway for AI startups is unparalleled today.
Sourav Das, a serial entrepreneur and self-proclaimed animal whisperer, has been juggling his love for content, SEO, and his ever-growing menagerie since 2012. Armed with a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering and an arsenal of 14+ certifications from tech giants like Google and Facebook, Sourav has been soaring high in the world of content strategy for over a decade.
When he’s not busy helping companies navigate the complex world of AI, NLP, and machine learning, you can find him tending to his 11 cats, 4 dogs, 60 pigeons, and a lone lizard who keeps wondering how it ended up in this chaos.
With a passion for research and a knack for business strategy, Sourav is on a mission to make the Earth a better place, one valuable article at a time.