11 AI Side Hustles for Software Engineers to Make Extra Cash in 2024

Develop and Sell AI Apps and Tools

If you have experience building AI systems, offer your skills as an AI consultant. Develop Custom AI Solutions

You can help companies develop custom AI solutions for their business needs. This could include things like creating chatbots, automating processes, analyzing data to uncover insights, and more. Charge between $100 to $200 per hour for this type of work.

Teach AI Skills

With AI becoming more prominent, many companies want to learn how to implement AI but don’t have the in-house expertise. You can teach employees how to get started with AI through online or on-site courses covering topics like machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. Promote your services on platforms like Udemy or Udacity and charge $200-$500 per student.

Write AI White Papers

If you have a technical writing background and understand AI concepts, offer to write AI white papers, case studies, and reports for companies. These types of papers help establish thought leadership and expertise. Charge at least $0.10 to $0.30 per word for this AI writing service.

Provide AI Audits and Assessments

Help companies better understand their AI readiness and opportunities by conducting AI audits and assessments. Review their data, processes, and goals and provide a report on how AI could benefit their business. You can then offer to help implement the recommendations. Charge $2,000 to $10,000 for a comprehensive AI assessment, depending on the size of the company.

With demand for AI skills continuing to outpace supply, offering AI consulting services is a great way for software engineers to earn additional income on the side. Leverage your knowledge and experience to provide value to companies looking to implement AI solutions. The opportunities are vast, allowing you to pursue the types of projects you find most interesting.

Teach AI and Machine Learning Courses Online

Build AI Tools and APIs

One popular side hustle for software engineers is developing AI tools, APIs and services that can be licensed or sold to other companies. For example, you could build an image recognition API, a natural language processing engine, or a recommendation system. The key is finding a specific problem that needs solving and creating a flexible, robust solution.

Create AI Apps

Another option is building your own AI-powered mobile apps or web apps. Things like virtual assistants, smart home control apps or AI-enhanced productivity tools are all possibilities. The app store model gives you a platform to distribute your apps to a huge audience. While competition is fierce, unique, well-designed AI apps still have potential to gain traction.

Offer AI Consulting Services

Not ready to build a full product yet? Consider offering AI consulting services to help companies implement AI solutions. Many businesses want to leverage AI but lack the internal expertise. As an AI specialist, you can guide them through the process of identifying use cases, acquiring data, building models and integrating systems. These types of consulting gigs are in high demand and can be quite lucrative.

The key to success with any of these side hustles is finding a niche, building something truly useful, and making the technology accessible to non-experts. With hard work and persistence, these AI side hustles could turn into full-time jobs or even startup opportunities. The possibilities are endless if you have the skills and vision to make AI work for real people and businesses.

Create AI-Generated Content

Share Your Knowledge

As an AI engineer, you have valuable expertise that many people are eager to learn. Creating and selling online courses is an excellent way to generate extra income from the knowledge and skills you already have. Platforms like Udemy, Coursera, and Udacity make it simple to build, market, and sell video courses on AI, machine learning, and related topics.

High Demand Skills

AI and machine learning skills are in huge demand, and people are willing to pay to learn from industry experts. You can teach courses on anything from machine learning algorithms, to AI programming with Python, to robotics and computer vision. With the rapid changes in AI technology, online courses also provide an opportunity for you to share the latest tools, techniques and concepts as you continue to expand your own knowledge.

Flexibility and Scalability

The beauty of online courses is that once you’ve created the content, it can continue generating revenue for years with minimal additional effort. You have flexibility in how much you charge for courses, and the potential to scale up by attracting more students over time. Many instructors are able to turn online courses into a full-time income stream. You can even expand into offering certifications, coaching programs, and other paid services to supplement your course offerings.

While building a successful course does require an initial investment of time, it can provide an ongoing source of income and allow you to share your knowledge with a much wider audience. For AI engineers looking to make extra money on the side, creating and selling online courses is an ideal way to leverage your expertise into a profitable side hustle.

Build AI Chatbots and Virtual Assistants

AI technology has advanced to the point where software engineers can create their own AI systems to generate content. This can be an interesting side hustle since many businesses want high-quality content at a rapid pace. As an AI engineer, you have the skills to develop AI that can research topics and generate blog posts, social media posts, product descriptions, and more.

Develop an AI Writing Assistant

Build an AI that can generate written content on any topic. You'll need to develop algorithms that can conduct online research, analyze what they find, and create original content in a natural writing style. The AI will need to be able to write in different tones of voice and styles for different audiences. If done well, an AI writing assistant could be very valuable to content marketing teams, bloggers, and small businesses.

Create AI for Social Media Management

Develop an AI tool that can generate social media posts, schedule them, and analyze the results. The AI would need to be able to create posts in the appropriate style and voice for different social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It would need to choose images or videos to include and add hashtags and tagging as needed. The AI could save social media managers a lot of time and help businesses improve their social media marketing efforts.

Build AI for Product Descriptions

Create an AI that can generate optimized product descriptions for ecommerce businesses. The AI would research the product and company to determine an angle for the description that highlights key features and benefits for customers. It needs to be persuasive to drive sales but sound natural. The AI could quickly and affordably generate high-quality product descriptions at scale for companies with large product catalogs. This type of AI tool would be very useful for online retailers.