These online business models are endangered (by AI)

Read Time: 5 minutes

Welcome to BE THE EXPERT! In today’s issue:

• Find out if AI endangers your business model
• How much you need to change to remain competitive
• How to build an AI-Proof online business

These business models are endangered (by AI)

For creators and solopreneurs, which business models will survive the coming waves of AI?

In this issue, I will break down how to evaluate your business model (or plan) and see if it will survive AI in 2025.

Before we dive in, there are just a few days left to register for my workshop ​How To Make Your Online Business AI-Proof In 2025​

In the workshop we’re going work together on your plan for 2025 and how to AI-enable your business and make it AI-proof.

We’ve created a 5-part framework with the essential elements you need to inject into your online business to survive and thrive in the AI age.

How endangered is YOUR business model?

In a previous issue, I demonstrated that ​AI is likely going to destroy 50%​ or more of the online course, coaching, and membership businesses.

But how do you know which side of that coin you are on?

We need to look at a few specific factors and answer the following questions to find out.

Is your niche dynamic?

The more dynamic your niche is, the more likely it will survive AI. Let’s take two extremes.

In the tech niche (products, software, services) changes daily, even hourly.

It is extremely dynamic, with new aspects and major shifts happening all the time.

On the other end of the spectrum might be something like teaching a foreign language.

It is not often that fundamentally new or different techniques come along (and the ones that are like AI threaten all the existing methods)

The more dynamic your niche is, the more likely it will survive AI, and that AI can help you accelerate your ability to keep up with the changes.

In my ​workshop​, this will be a major topic of discussion: how to keep up and leverage AI to get ahead.

Is your ideal customer going to be replaced by AI?

I’ll be blunt: AI will take over many categories of jobs, replacing humans.

Let’s take two of the most likely: copywriters and designers.

AI will not replace 100% of those. But there will be extreme changes. The bottom 50% will be replaced completely, IMHO.

The next 40% will themselves use AI to become more efficient.

The top 10% will continue to thrive.

If your niche is teaching entry-level copywriting or design, you will have a MUCH smaller potential market than you have in the past, both for people who want to become copywriters or designers or for people who might need those skills to try to DIY.

Why?

Because they can already just use AI, and with the waves coming in 2025, AI and related tools will get MUCH better at bringing a novice to expert level (or the AI will just complete the task)

In my ​workshop​, we’ll discuss how to adapt to these shifts. Hint: helping that 40%…

Is your output 1x, 2x, 5x, or 10x a single human?

If you are a solopreneur and doing most of the work in your business yourself, no matter your niche, your business model is at risk.

All of us compete with the larger influencers and brands in our niches.

The ones with teams get more done and can grow faster.

With today’s AI, let alone what’s coming in 2025, it is possible now for a single person to 2x, 5x, and even 10x their output.

So now we’ll be competing with many others that are the equivalent of the bigger brands: The solopreneurs who get the maximum out of AI.

In my ​workshop​, we’re going to focus a lot on how to get a team of AI agents and assistants working for you to increase your output as a solopreneur by 10x or more.

Are you a practitioner?

Do you do what you teach or do you just teach?

If you “just” teach, then you are only packaging existing information (which AI will do better and replace).

If you are a practitioner, though, you are accumulating experience and potentially new information that AI does not have access to.

A great example here is someone who teaches social media marketing but isn’t active on social media vs. someone who teaches it, is highly active and helps clients as well.

The former is easily replaced by AI.

The latter, not so much.

They are in it in real time, and if they orient their business around the dynamic nature of the niche, they can be successful.

Do you deliver information or results?

This is the big one. If the result you deliver for your customer is “they learned something,” then your business model is at risk.

I love learning, don’t get me wrong, but that is an area where AI will take over.

The less dynamic the niche, the more likely AI will take over teaching the topic.

The big shift we need to consider is focusing on results.

Outside of hobbies, most of us desiring to learn something is for the goal of ACCOMPLISHING something. Getting a result.

I don’t study technology for academic purposes; I study it so I can build (and help others build) technical solutions.

If all I did was teach you about a given platform, and at the end of the day, you don’t have anything tangible created, then you haven’t received a result.

This is why I believe that online courses and the DIY model most of us are chasing is endangered. The success rate of students in all forms of DIY / online courses / etc. is in the single digits.

To help our ideal customers get better results, we need to shift to more done-with-you and done-for-you models.

That does NOT have to mean lower margin business.

Again, this is where partnering with AI is crucial and what we’ll be talking about in my ​workshop​.

Real-world example

In my business, where we help people establish their content engine, we have a DIY version where people can learn how to plan, create, edit, and repurpose their videos.

Before, we TAUGHT people how to write a YouTube script.

Now, we HELP people write a YouTube script by creating specialized AI agents trained on top-performing videos and script outlines.

Our AI agents help people actually write their scripts.

That’s a big difference.

When you “just” teach, at the end of the day, the student still has to do all the work.

When you teach and HELP them, they get more accomplished.

When you do it in a scalable way, like with AI agents and assistants, you can still have a high-margin business…

Putting it all together

You now know how endangered your business model and niche may be from AI and competitors using AI.

But I think you also see that there is still opportunity in most niches if certain changes are made (urgently)

That is why it’s essential that you ​register for my workshop​ and put together your plan for 2025.

I’m going to show you how to infuse the five factors below into your business so that you can survive and thrive in the age of AI:

• Skill
• Experience
• Trust
• Connection
• Results

At the end of the workshop, you’ll have an actionable plan to put into action.

SIDE NOTE: See the slight difference there, focusing on an outcome? This isn’t just a teaching workshop. I’m orienting this around a tangible result: you’ll have a plan on paper at the end to put into action. This is closer to done-with-you than do-it-yourself.