The rise of Artificial Intelligence, or A.I., as a tool that average people can use for school, work and business is impacting employment and industry faster than many would have predicted. Aspiring entrepreneurs building online businesses today can use the tools to increase productivity, create content, manage data and make decisions.

But what impact will A.I. have on the popular online business platforms that are the foundation for the creator economy and beyond? And what will it mean for online entrepreneurs everywhere?

The Early Test…

This article was written by a human, but ChatGPT was asked to write the same content using the prompt: write a blog post about how A.I. could impact online business and online business entrepreneurs.  You can see the results here.

And if you decide to compare the two articles, you can read how this human written version is, in a word…better.

Here’s why…

Chat GPT focused on the technical and operational aspects of using A.I. in online businesses, but it did not cover the different online platforms, which is the reality for content creators and the focus of this blog post. (9 online platforms are covered as business opportunities in the Real Stories blog series and Ready Entrepreneur podcasts episodes 143 – 151)

Chat GPT did not cover the practical considerations that you have as an online entrepreneur.  Plus the app is prone to listicals that betray its origin in pulling information from other sources and not ‘writing’ content for a specific audience.

That said, the list provides several interesting topics that will be explored in future posts. But to get the correct ‘voice’ into a ChatGPT blog, you have to spend time ‘training’ the A.I. to output your ideas. In the near future, these functions will become streamlined, so this blog focuses on the front-facing A.I. app features that can be easily accessed and used today.

Now from the human…

Online users are creating bizarre images, generating six second movie quality clips, asking a program to be a friend, and completing homework, by using online technology collectively called A.I.

The abbreviation for artificial intelligence has become the catch-all for complex technologies involving large language models (LLMs) and neural networks. But that is all the domain of the nerds.

As will be the data applications. A.I. will help all businesses analyze data, predict consumer behavior, define trends, adjust prices and immediately respond to algorithm changes. That will affect your business at some point, but so far these are not the activities of the average online entrepreneur.

For the average Internet user, A.I. is a shortcut to get answers, text, images and videos that are speeding up the completion of tasks, and creating endless entertainment for the millions who now use it daily.

If you are an online entrepreneur earning a living through any of the popular platforms, you can readily see the benefits of using A.I. to create content, especially headlines and advertising. But will that content remain valuable in a world where consumers are looking for original and ‘human’ material?

Yes and No.

Getting started with ChatGPT

You may have begun your exploration of A.I. when you first heard of ChatGPT and began to ask the app questions. Trained by Siri, you were already used to asking a program for help, but within a couple of prompts ChatGPT dazzled you with its rapid response and often useful content.

Once you saw a teenager use the tool to complete their English essay or a consultant getting relevant wording for a $500 an hour presentation, you knew there was an opportunity emerging.

Skipping the ethical issues, especially the copyright concerns and cheating, fears of control by machines, and the unknown impact on employment and income, these early A.I. applications have ignited unparalleled curiosity.

Enough to know you have to understand how A.I. applies to your online business.

Defining A.I. for Online Business

For this article, A.I. means the publicly available online tools that use A.I. models to generate content output for users.

For the most part this is ChatGPT and a few other text based applications, image and video generators including text to video and voice to video, and voice and gesture generators which can use one photo image to generate animated videos.

Many people are experimenting with these apps (most have a free trial) and selecting favorites based on the output quality. But looking at social media posts and advertising, the implementation in consumer-facing business has been limited.

However, there is no doubt that businesses everywhere are learning how to use A.I. to their advantage, and you are already feeling the impact. Having Microsoft prompt you to try Copilot, and Google pointing to click on Gemini, is just the beginning. You will almost certainly end up using the technology before you know what it can do, and you are already impacted by it.

For your online business, you will select how A.I. is used, but the benefits will depend on the platform where you have built your business, and your commitment to applying new technologies.

The Impact of A.I. by Online Platform

Here is platform-by-platform insight into the impact of A.I. on your online business…

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketers promote products and services created by other people, so the impact of ChatGPT will most likely be in advertising. Affiliate marketers are imputing descriptions of the product into the A.I. engine and writing prompts that generate new marketing headlines. This type of content is currently A.I.’s stock-in-trade. Most people who try it for the first time are using text-based prompts to create text-based solutions.

Using A.I. for creating this content will no doubt reduce costs and provide affiliate marketers with a broader range of ideas.  It may even be creating new affiliate products.

But the key to being a successful affiliate marketer is to differentiate your offer in the marketplace. By definition, all affiliates know that hundreds, often thousands, of people are selling the same product. If you use A.I. to generate your advertising content, and so do many others, how will you stand out in the marketplace?

➡ If you maintain the core idea that successful affiliate marketing requires creativity and offer bundles to distinguish sellers in the marketplace, then ‘no’ A.I. will not have a substantial impact on your business.

Blogging

A.I. can easily write a blog post on any subject. But the output while factual, and often copied from existing content, is readable, its value varies.

The most successful bloggers offer insights into their subject area based on observations and experiences, or extensive research with original insights. A.I. does not have a social life, or any life at all. It is being prompted to produce output based on inputs, and that’s it.

While it can easily scour the Internet and find answers, it’s organizational and formatting structure is a giveaway that the content is created by A.I. And that leaves A.I’s output less popular than hearing directly from a societal observer with the discipline to post a blog.

➡ Yes, as a blogger, you can outsource the entire job to A.I. if you come up with prompts that create interesting articles, on varied topics with undiscovered spins. If not, you will be posting another boring, possibly copied article, that will eventually be uncovered and undermine your blogging career.

Course Creation

You can give an A.I. app a subject and ask for a course outline – which it will generate. Then you select the subjects you want to include in your course, and ask for the presentation content – which it will generate. So far there is not a quality generator of presentation material including graphics, videos and the color scheme of your imagination, but that should not be far off.

You can also tell the A.I. to create the course in a particular style aimed at a specific audience. To ensure your content is different from someone with the same idea, you have to carefully review the material and change sections into ‘your own voice.’  You should also add your own testimonials and examples.

However, A.I. is missing one secret of great course creation and that’s storytelling. The best online teachers explain their subject in the context of stories that they have woven in to help you learn the material. These are personal stories based on experience, something no A.I. app has developed.

A.I. can give you stories, made up or real, but if you are unable to relevantly weave the story into the course content, you lose its impact.

Allowing A.I. to create the whole course leaves you with bland material. It may be factually accurate, even correctly sequenced, but it lacks the unique perspective that separates regular online courses from the multi-million dollar bestsellers the top gurus distribute.

➡Yes, you can use A.I. to create your online course, but you have to spend time rewriting and reworking the material into a product that is unique to you as the course creator.

eCommerce

An eCommerce store usually sells physical goods to consumers around the world. In fact, many of these stores on platforms like Etsy and Shopify made their name by creating unique physical products that targeted consumers came to love, which means there is a limited role for A.I. in disrupting this platform.

With the exception of marketing, descriptions, images – and maybe new ideas for products, these stores will likely remain free of A.I. upheaval.

However, some of the stores sell digital products targeted at niche markets. And while these products by definition are open to online infiltration, there is still a limited role for A.I. in creating truly original physical products that people want to use.

➡ For eCommerce physical products stores, no, A.I. will not have an impact, but creation and sale of digital products will be a different story.

Freelancing

Online freelancers are providing services to online outsourcers. This is a platform that will benefit from A.I. on every level. Freelancers who provide A.I.-ready services like marketing, graphics design, video creation, copy creation – can still reap the benefits of outsourcing by becoming excellent at writing prompts for A.I. engines. They no longer have to do the work themselves, but can still charge whatever they want for the output.

While some outsourcers will likely realize the freelancers are using A.I. for the work, they will still pay them rather than spend time to learn the apps or hire in-house personnel to focus on A.I. creations.

 A.I. has also created new jobs for freelancers. Many businesses need help learning how to use A.I. effectively. They need people who can write prompts, identify the best apps, train the apps for the specifics of the business, create business specific templates and much more.

➡ Yes, freelancing stands to benefit from A.I. both by making work more productive, and by creating new in-demand job skills.

Podcasting

In contrast, podcasting will probably benefit the least. Podcasting is the creation of audio programming, and today’s podcasts provide content for hundreds of niches.

While A.I. will help podcasters and guests come up with new content, and can even write scripts for entertainment programs, the most successful podcasts are unscripted interviews between hosts and individuals. There is little A.I. can produce for the main content. It can certainly create advertising copy, including using A.I. generated voices to read the content, but the main show still has its value in the unpredictable world of thinking and talking individuals.

➡ No, A.I. does not have many inroads into podcasting, except for advertising and some production like writing intros, outros and descriptions.

Social Media Influencer

Social media influencers produce promotional content for brands by adding their unique reviews, lifestyle uses and commentary on the products or services.

Like podcasters, it’s the unique voice of the influencer that is the value they provide, which leaves little room for A.I.

The apps can come up with new promotional ideas and posting content, but the overall vision and theme has to come from the influencer.

That said, an influencer can use A.I. to create an A.I. influencer.  If the content is clever, it will be like watching animated shows with product placement. Certainly now while A.I. apps are still emerging, there is plenty of room for clever uses online. And advertisers follow eyeballs, so if enough people are watching, the human behind the bot stands to make a fortune.

➡ But until then, no, A.I. will not disrupt human influencers, until bots become influencers too.

Virtual Coaching

A virtual coach provides advice, insight and implementation plans for clients.  A.I. can answer questions, but its answers provide little in the way of tailoring or analysis for specific people.

But as A.I. gets better at ‘reading’ human emotions, virtual coaching by virtual humans will skyrocket. Who wouldn’t want a 24/7 coach and listener who can help you out whenever you need someone to talk to, and probably cost…next to nothing.

Today top flight coaches can cost tens of thousands a year, but if the app can learn to do the same thing they do – like help you navigate opportunities for your business, manage stress or pick out a wardrobe for an official function – then good-bye human.

The best coaches provide, yes, a human touch. But many people only want the advice. They want the To-Do list and activities to complete. They want someone to guide them and help them come up with a plan. Since much of that work can be standardized even in different economies and environments, the apps are ready.

➡ So yes absolutely A.I. will eventually overtake the human coach.

YouTuber

YouTubers make online videos on any subject, for any reason. Since YouTubers can fit into all of the above platforms, they will win and lose with A.I. for the same reasons.

YouTubers who are original voices like podcasters and influencers will remain leaders on the platform, unthreatened by A.I.

Affiliate marketers and bloggers who use A.I. to create marketing campaigns will be just as effective on YouTube.

Coaches and course creators can disappear as YouTube may eventually use its own A.I. to create its own content and keep all the money generated by advertisers.

Your ability to be a successful YouTuber in the age of A.I. will depend on which other platform you choose for creating your online business.

Next Actions for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

If you are just getting started with online business, where should you focus your attention when it comes to A.I.

1. Learn the most popular apps. Make sure you know what ChatGPT and the other apps can do so that you are prepared to use them effectively in your business
2. Start experimenting. If you post regularly on social media, use A.I. to create images or videos related to your posts. These would all be original content and could start to attract people to your feed simply out of curiosity
3. Let A.I. do some of your heavy lifting. When you cannot come up with an idea or need a little extra energy, ask A.I. You do not have to copy and paste the output verbatim, just let it work for you whenever necessary.
4. Stay informed, see what others are doing and decide if their output is interesting or too early for your average dream customer.

A.I. is part of our online world now. There’s no escaping the work being done to streamline tasks and become more productive. The value of the tools is seen in many fields. While some may think their jobs are disappearing, the opposite may be true as the entire economy retools for an A.I. world.

As an online entrepreneur, you are on the forefront and need to be among the most informed consumers about the possibilities and challenges of the technology. And the best time to get started is right now.