A few months back, Tai Lopez's team slid into my DMs.

Yeah, the “here I am in my garage guy”

They wanted me to create an AI automation course. Proper big opportunity - talking about flying me to LA to film it, the works. I was genuinely tempted.

Then I actually checked what Tai was saying about AI.

You’ve probably seen the sort of messaging plastered all over social media: "Automatic income!" "Print money with faceless videos!" "Trading bots that beat the market!" Normally being sold by a 20 year old from his Dubai apartment balcony. It was that vibe.

Look, I respect the hustle. Tai Lopez is a master salesman. He’s the best at what he does. But Christ, the promises were mental.

They just weren’t aligned with what I teach. So I declined.

But here's the mad bit - there IS serious money being made in AI. Last year alone, I pulled in £300-400K+ teaching people about this stuff. Starting from ZERO.

And my workshop students charge £1000 an hour and sign implementation deals off the back of it. Heck, I’ve been paid $4000 for one hour of my time giving a talk.

There is a huge amount of demand for AI knowledge and implementation right now. And companies are willing to pay top dollar.

BUT the money isn't lying on the floor waiting to be picked up like the 19 year old on TikTok tells you. You won’t be a millionaire with ChatGPT next week. Sorry!

This Playbook about the reality behind the AI gold rush, and how to actually get a piece of it. It’s all based on how I personally make (good) money and techniques I’ve taught others.

And it all, boringly(!), is first based in solid business principles!

Let’s get started

The Grift is Real

Every few years, we get a new "revolution" that's supposedly going to make everyone rich overnight.

Remember when everyone was going to get wealthy flipping houses? Then it was dropshipping. Then crypto. Then NFTs. Now it's AI.

If they worked we’d all be sitting on the beach with our Maitais by now. But here we are.

The pattern's always identical. New technology emerges. Early adopters see genuine success. Then hype merchants arrive promising anyone can replicate those results with their "secret system."

I get pitched these systems constantly now. "Kyle, want to see my AI YouTube automation that's making £50K a month?". My DMs are an absolute trainwreck (which is why I don’t check or respond to DMs often - sorry!)

What They're Actually Selling

The current crop of AI hustles falls into predictable categories

Automated YouTube channels. ChatGPT writes scripts, AI generates visuals, text-to-speech does the voiceover. Upload and profit, apparently.

AI trading bots. Because the same ChatGPT that thinks there are three Rs in "strawberry" is definitely going to outperform Goldman Sachs.

Faceless social empires. AI creates all your content while you sip cocktails in Bali. Dominate LinkedIn and Twitter overnight with automated posting, responses and more.

Dropshipping with AI sauce. Now the robots will find products AND write descriptions. I actually got approached by a multi billion-dollar Chinese company wanting me to promote their "sourcing AI" - even though I don't dropship and told them it's not my thing. "Doesn't matter," they said. Yikes. More on that story in the next Part.

Here's what they don't tell you

AI content is aggressively mediocre. Still. YouTube's algorithm rewards engagement, not automation. Your AI-generated "10 Amazing Space Facts" competes with MrBeast's latest million-pound production. Good luck with that…

Yes, the content and quality will get better. BUT that brings us to the next point.

Everyone has access to the same tools. Your "secret ChatGPT prompts" aren't secret. They're probably identical to what thousands of others are using. So what happens when everyone is flooding YouTube, social media and Google with the same AI generated content (even if the quality is high)? We get oversupply and a collapse in price/value. Microeconomics FTW.

You need something more. We need to combine AI (which is increasingly universally accessible) with something special that we bring to the mix.

But the Money is Real

Here's what's actually happening while everyone chases automation fantasies

Businesses are desperate for AI help. Every company knows they need to "do something" with AI. Most have no clue what. They'll pay serious money for someone who can bridge that gap.

My students prove this weekly. They're charging £1000+ per hour for AI workshops. Not because they're technical geniuses - because they understand business problems and can explain how AI solves them.

In fact being a technical genius is a hinderance - our job is instead to bridge the gap to “normal” businesses and show them what they should be focusing on. And being too deep in the sauce gets in the way of this - as soon as we start mentioning back propagation and gradient descent to executives their eyes (rightfully) glaze over.

Our job instead is to guide individuals and businesses into this new world of AI. We take on the role of Virgil in the Inferno if we want to be fancy.

This comes in a few different flavours.

The first (my focus!) is on building authority online and content about what AI is, what it is for and what is it not for. I personally focus on the newsletter and TikTok to do so. But there are multiple channels available for this. The best is where people from your industry hang out.

We’ll be covering this and other ways to profit over this Playbook.

Your Unfair Advantage

The biggest opportunity isn't in the AI itself - it's in combining AI with knowledge you already have.

I harp on about this a lot. Sorry! But it’s important.

There’s enough generic guff out there about AI. What we need are specifics.

You know your industry's problems. You understand what keeps people awake at 3am. You've seen the repetitive tasks that drain hours of expensive time.

That knowledge + AI skills = genuine business opportunity.

This is the core of what separates our efforts from hyped up “make passive income from home in 2 hours a week from your beachfront property” nonsense.

What We’ll Cover

We're covering three legitimate paths to AI income

Building Authority - Becoming the go-to AI expert in your field through content and speaking

Building Solutions - Creating tools and automations that solve actual business problems

Teaching Implementation - Running workshops and consulting that help businesses adopt AI effectively

Each works because it creates genuine value. Not because it exploits some technological loophole.

Are these the only ways? Absolutely not. But they are three ways I’ve personally made money and worked with others who are making money. So In know they work and the pathways to get them up and running.

The opportunities are real. But they require real work. I’ll outline the process but it’s still up to you to put in the effort - if that sounds like too much I’d say skip this Playbook.

What's Next?

Next we'll dig into why AI doesn't change the fundamentals of business. The same principles that built successful companies before ChatGPT still apply. We'll use these to evaluate which AI opportunities are worth pursuing and which are just shiny distractions.

I'll also tell you about that billion-dollar dropshipping company and why I walked away from more money than I used to make in a month - for a 60-second video…

Yeah…still hurts!

Keep Prompting,

Kyle