AI Side Hustlers Report Nearly Double the Monthly Income

A new survey of 1,007 side hustlers suggests AI side hustlers are earning noticeably more from their businesses on the side. According to research by web company Network Solutions, reported by Inc., respondents who used AI said they earned an average of $555 a month, compared with $333 for nonusers. The gap at the median was wider still: $500 versus $250.

The survey arrives as side income is becoming a permanent feature of American working life. The surge has been well documented, with some studies finding that nearly a quarter of all U.S. adults have launched their own side hustle in recent years. A separate 2026 report from MyPerfectResume, carried by PR Newswire, found that 72 percent of U.S. workers rely on at least one secondary income source, up from 71 percent last year. Half of them said only a substantial raise would convince them to stop. The Network Solutions numbers describe how that growing crowd works, not just how many of them there are. Side work itself is shifting too: many workers no longer treat it as an extra at all (see our earlier report on gig work becoming a primary income).

What the AI side hustlers are doing differently

The survey suggests the biggest difference shows up at the very start. Thirty-three percent of respondents said they probably or definitely would not have started their side hustle without AI tools. The most common early obstacle, cited by 36 percent, was figuring out the first steps. A Network Solutions report on the findings said that for most of the AI side hustlers, the blank page and not knowing where to begin was harder than the work itself.

Once the businesses were running, AI trimmed the workload. The AI side hustlers surveyed said they saved an average of nine hours a week, mostly on writing, social media content, branding, logo creation, and market research. Nine hours a week is more than a full workday handed back every week, and over a year it adds up to the equivalent of almost 12 full workdays that can go back into the business or back into life. Those hours matter: separate research has found that troubleshooting tech problems already costs workers weeks of lost productivity each year (our earlier coverage of the AI productivity study). Nearly 40 percent of the AI side hustlers said they launched faster than expected, against 30 percent of nonusers, and the average timeline from concept to operation was about one month. Older founders moved fastest. Forty-seven percent of baby boomers had their businesses running within four weeks, ahead of Gen Z at 40 percent and millennials at 37 percent.

What AI side hustlers still cannot automate

The researchers cautioned against reading too much into the earnings gap. The numbers show correlation: AI users earn more, but the technology itself may not be the cause. People who adopt new tools may already be the more committed hustlers, so the results reflect who uses AI as much as what AI does. That caveat matters because the survey also surfaced problems no tool can hand off. Twenty-eight percent said staying motivated was the hardest task to delegate, a telling contrast: the AI side hustlers happily handed off the busywork, but not the mindset, and 20 percent pointed to finding and retaining customers.

Competition is another worry. Forty-five percent of respondents said they fear AI makes it easier for competitors to copy what they do, a concern that ran highest among digital-product sellers and content creators. When everyone can generate similar products with the same tools, the business itself has to stand on its own. One entrepreneur quoted in the Network Solutions report had plain advice: do not reinvent the wheel. Use the tools, but make sure the business makes sense first.

That advice fits the broader picture. Most side hustles still begin as something the founder already enjoys. A survey from Self Financial found that more than half of side jobs started out as hobbies before they started paying. For the AI side hustlers in the survey, AI can shorten the trip from hobby to income by clearing the blank page and trimming the weekly workload, and it may widen what people earn along the way. Whether anyone pays for what you are selling still comes down to the basics: finding a customer and solving a real problem. The advice reflects what the rest of the survey shows. Tools compress time, but they do not create demand.