What's the hottest word in 2026? Ai. What's the hottest way to get money? With ai。
Open any platform you can see "ai writes 30,000 monthly" "ai makes 1,000 video days" and "ai paints next year." it's like you'll fall out of the sky as long as you use an ai tool。
But today i would like to say a fact that is happening and that few dare to say: that ai is making money quickly, and that ordinary people are not only not making money, but may also suffer from it。
It's not alarmist. Let us look first at three phenomena。
Event i: rate of spread of ai tools, well above rate of demand growth
At the beginning of 2025, ai, which was able to write, was also a novelty, and a few would be able to make money on information bills. By 2026, even the groceries would have known how to write little red books in ai. What's the result? The unit price written by ai fell from $100 last year to $5 this year, and there are even more than one dollar of unlimited supply。
The most fundamental principle of economics is that when supply is much greater than demand, prices collapse. That's what ai generated. Now it takes five minutes for any ordinary person to learn to produce a text, picture and video of good quality. Do you think this "skill" can still sell
Those classes that tell you to learn "ai can do it every month" are essentially using the last wave of information to harvest you. When you learn, the market is saturated。
Symptom ii: homogenization of ai-generated content, allowing the platform to “de-ai”
Have you noticed that now, with short videos, more and more people look the same, talk the same way, even bgm? Because everyone is using the same ai tool, the same template, the same hint。
Platform algorithms are not stupid. They were aware of that. At the beginning of 2026, a headline content platform updated the recommended algorithm to explicitly reduce the weight of “low-quality ai-generated content”. What is "low-quality ai generation"? It's just something that can be seen at first glance as being machine-written without any personal opinion or emotion。
Worse still, some platforms have begun to introduce “real-person certification” labels that tend to increase the flow of original creators. This means that the volume of content produced exclusively by ai is becoming worse and worse。
You think you're lazy with ai, actually you're making garbage for the platform。
Symptom iii: ai does not replace duplication of effort, but rather “primary payers”
Many thought ai would replace low-end jobs like translation, customer service, data entry. That's right. But very few realize that ai was the first to replace the primary players who “pay with ai”。
For example, someone used to make money by making a ppt template, a set that sold dozens of dollars. Now ai can generate 100 sets of ppt templates in 10 seconds, not bad quality. Do you think you can sell your template? Someone used to earn $500 for writing a public number for a business. Now the boss writes it in ai. Five minutes. Save $500. Do you think you can still get the bill
The spread of ai has cut off many of the “broker-paying” businesses. If you're just an "a" tool, then your value will soon be zero。
Is it impossible for an ordinary man to make money with ai? On the contrary。
My central point is that ai is not "directly making money," but rather "expanding your existing strengths." those who made a lot of money on ai were experts in a certain field before it appeared。
I'll break down three real cases where i actually made money on ai
Case a: chang, a ten-year real estate broker. He generated hundreds of different styles of home writings with ai, and then made his own video, with subtitles and music made by ai, and distributed 30 short videos daily in bulk. His content is of a professional nature (area, taxes and fees, school district policy) and, together with ai's help in bulk production, increases the efficiency of his clients tenfold. He earns money from selling houses, not from ai skills。
Case b: li, a graduate in english, has been translated for three years. She used the ai-assisted translation technology to translate documents, which used to be 3,000 words a day, and now 10,000 words a day, and of higher quality. She used the time saved to develop an “ai translation proofreading” service designed to help businesses check machine translation errors. Her core competitiveness does not use ai, but translates。
Case c: wang xiao, senior hr, recruited for eight years. Using ai, he generated hundreds of curriculum vitae templates and interview question libraries for different positions, which were packaged into a payment kit and sold to job seekers. At the same time, he recorded the course “ai support job search”. He earned money from his years of hr experience, not from ai tools themselves。
You see something in common? They first have professional accumulations and then use ai to magnify efficiency. Ai is leverage, not principal。
So, in 2026, the most sobering ai strategy was only four words: to use force。
What do you mean? Don't spend any more time learning how to use ai, because it's going to be simpler and lower the threshold. The place where you're going to spend your time is to build that barrier you can't replace。
The barrier may be: your deep understanding of an industry; the trust relationships you have built with clients; your unique aesthetic or expression; and the real data and resources you have。
These things, ai can't steal or learn。
How? Three steps for you:
Step 1: take an inventory of your existing, al-ai's irreplaceable capabilities. Don't say nothing to yourself. You've been in work, you've learned how to work, you've brought children, you've learned how to care for children, you've bought a house, you've learned how to step on a pit. These real experiences are the most valuable assets。
Step two: use ai to help you zoom in on this. For example, if you know how to raise a child, ask ai to help you organize your experience into a collection of 100 common questions and questions; if you know how to cook, let ai design a recipe that doesn't matter for a week. Ai is responsible for “sizing and efficiency”, and you are responsible for “truth and trust”。
Step three: sell the product of your "real ability plus ai support" to the people around you who most trust you. Don't want to blow up all over the internet at the start. Their reputations and transpositions work better than any flow。
And finally, a judgment that could lead to sin
For the next three years, "will" won't make you any more money, just like "will use computers" won't make you any more money, because it's already patterned. What really opens the gap is whether you have something "ai can't replace."。
If you're still a man without any professional accumulation, no unique resources, my advice is not to learn ai, but to build up your professional skills. Even if you learn to fix air conditioning, learn to collect, learn to communicate with children. Then we'll zoom in on it with ai。
Ai is a amplifier, not a money machine. In the wrong direction, no big magnifying glass can see gold。
Have you ever made money with ai? How much have you made? Do you think ai saved your energy or did it make you more anxious? Talk to the comment section。
"ai is just a lever, the principal is on its own," says a few words; i think i'm sung by ai, and i'm holding you back。
Send it to those friends who are crazy about buying ai lessons, so he can calm down. Look at me. Next issue says: how can people with no professional skills build an ai “capable moat” from scratch。
