MBA2728 The Best AI Businesses To Start In 2026

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1:29can profit from without needing a 20-person engineering team. And the beauty is that it's still early days and you can still capitalize and build a business around AI because it's still early days. Let's get into it.

1:48Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. If this show has helped in any way, it would be amazing if you could drop us a quick review on whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast right now. It helps me and my team bring new episodes every week, and more importantly, more entrepreneurs will be able to discover our podcast so you can help someone else start their journey. Thanks so much. First things first, AI businesses, they don't win because they use AI.

2:27They win because they do three things exceptionally well. Number one, they remove a painful problem automatically. I'm talking about time, frustration, admin, bottlenecks, headaches. You want to alleviate all these pains with your solution. Number two, they deliver instant value. If users don't feel the benefit that you are providing in under 10 seconds, they will leave you, they will forget you, and you will lose that potential customer forever. And that's really costly. So you want to make sure that in the business models that we talked about today, that you deliver instant value as fast as possible, 10 seconds or less.

3:08Third aspect of a successful business model using AI is that they scale without needing a huge team. This means that you have large fat margins. Margins mean your profits. You want to make sure that you have great profit with this business model so that you can reinvest in the business and grow even faster. This creates like a flywheel that makes you unstoppable. So let's jump into those five best AI business models for 2026. Number one is the micro SaaS business, which is a niche product. This is the most approachable, most profitable business model for solar founders that just want to get started.

3:49So why does this work? Well, it solves one painful workflow for one specific group of people. One of my favorite apps that I use every single day, multiple times a day is an example of this. And that's a whisper flow. Whisper flow is basically a dictation app using AI that allows me to type crazy speeds. Like I'm able to type out messages, emails, instructions to my team on Basecamp, whatever it might be very, very quickly because I just blab whatever I want to say and it just uses AI to clean it up for me and put it out in a coherent way. So this is a great tool for people that are busy entrepreneurs that do a lot of typing in their day.

4:30Great tool that is targeted to my demographic, which are business builders. Another example would be like AI that automatically creates personalized workouts for Pilates instructors. So if you're a Pilates instructor, maybe you own your own studio, and you want to change up your actual workouts so that your students are feeling like things are fresh and new, this is a very niche and specific tool. It doesn't do everything, but it does this thing very well. Another good example, a real life example, is this little thing called Plod Note. I just bought this. It's a device and software that basically records any kind of lecture, any kind of talk, any kind of seminar, any kind of conference you're at, and then transcribes it, but then puts it into clean notes so that you don't have to take notes.

5:16It does all the note taking for you, gives you summaries, and then you can ask questions questions about your notes, and it can give you answers. So this is a very niche type of tool, because it does this only it doesn't do anything else. It records and transcribes and summarizes, you know, I know that sounds like three things, but basically, it takes notes for you. And that's what's really cool about it. Because I don't have to use any kind of separate or tools for this, I have to have like three or four tools at one time, it's just one tool that does it all. And anytime I need to take notes, I'm going to use this tool.

5:48This model works because you can actually solve a specific problem pretty quickly. You can build it pretty fast. The other reason why this model wins is because there's a clear buyer, easy go-to-market strategy. You know exactly who this is for because it's so specific. And then lastly, there's a tight scope to what it can do. So it's easy to maintain. So your costs to run this business is not through the roof. But most of The reason why I love these tools is because it really solves a specific pain instantly, and therefore people are willing to pay for it. Think about the tool examples I gave you.

6:22Think of the own tools that you use that have a specific use case. I love these types of tools because it actually scratches a specific itch that only can be done by this tool. And that's what I love about this tool is because that I am allowed to not worry about if it does XYZ. if it does just this, then I actually have solved a very good problem and can make some good money in this business model. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free range, self-directed investing, or perhaps you pick up a few farm fresh trades while you peruse.

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7:38I'm a huge fan of live video. As you know, we built and sold a webinar software for over 10 years. The great thing about live video is that they see what you've got, they can ask questions and buy, and they keep coming back. Anyone can sell, whether your business is big, small, or yet to even exist. People selling on Whatnot sell 10 times more than on other major marketplaces. That's because they're not just listing products. You're building real connections with buyers. I'm a big fan of whatnot, a big user of whatnot. I've bought products on whatnot because it's a lot of fun, actually. You get to interact with the seller as well as the fact that you get a great deal.

8:16It's super easy to use. It's intuitive, which means your buyers are going to find it easy to buy. Download the whatnot app today and get free shipping on your first order. Just search W-H-A-T-N-O-T-1-N-O-T in the App Store and start scoring amazing deals. Business model number two, AI workflow automation. And I want to say specifically for small businesses because they don't have big teams. Small businesses are drowning in admin and they don't want to hire expensive people. They want to have systems that work and they'll happily pay$49 to $2.99 a month to make something that is very painful go away.

9:01So here are some examples. An AI that automates follow-up emails or will schedule things for you automatically when somebody sends an email to you. Or an AI that manages client intake forms and sends them an invoice. One of my buddies, Dale Beaumont from Business Blueprint, has a great example of this. He has a tool called OneBrain that has 500 business SOPs built in. So it's solving the big problem of having SOPs in the first place, standard operating procedures, but also it is making it easy for you to have it all in one place and that you can just tell your team to go there to find the answer to their question.

9:39Most small business pain points are universal. It deals with billing, scheduling, admin, follow-up, documentation. The beauty is that AI eats these for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It's forte. It's what it does best. This is huge and a huge opportunity for 2026 because the market is practically infinite when it comes to the problems you can solve in these areas. Model number three, AI-powered education and coaching. In my belief, this is the future of the creator economy. I think that online courses and even coaching to a lesser extent are going to slowly take a backseat. AI allows you to personalize lessons, tailor feedback, give on-demand coaching, guide people depending on their own learning paths and where they're starting out.

10:26So it's not like a one-size-fits-all. Step-by-step implementation and instructions based on what they've done already. I've implemented this already in my own program, the 100 MBA. And I fully believe that AI and what I built, Omar AI, will cannibalize my program eventually because I believe that's where the future is going. Just like the iPod got cannibalized by the iPhone, I'm trying to do the same in my own little way. So my AI coach that I built, Omar AI, inside of the$100 MBA, allows me to scale my knowledge and scale my efforts without scaling my time. It helps so many people with all the knowledge it's fed from all the content that I have created.

11:06Students get support immediately. You don't have to wait for me. The completion rates of the course or even just the fact that they're moving forward starts to skyrocket. The results start to improve. Profit margins are obviously much better because I'm scaling myself to as many people that I can reach out to with AI. This is a model where creators can transform their content business into an AI-powered education company, which is a totally different thing. And it's perfect for your brand if you have a lot of content already and you want to move into the next phase of what's going to happen in the content world with AI.

11:44Because, of course, your AI is going to be using your content as its knowledge base. Model number four, AI creation tools. Everyone knows they need to create content, but no one has time to create the content. And this model removes friction in the creative process. Good examples of this are like AI video editors that cut clips automatically, or at least do a rough cut so that you can then go in and be a little bit more precise with your taste. Maybe AI slide deck builders, AI course outline generators that you can then turn into something that's powered by AI. Thumbnail generators, there's a whole market on just creating thumbnails for YouTube.

12:23Script writers that can help you build script based on your own ideas and your own content. The reason why this model and these tools really win is because the customer saves time immediately and they see the value instantly. They see, oh, wow, I spent hours on this. I can save so many hours every single week by just implementing this tool. You know, and creators share their results publicly because they're creating content with your tools. And they can say, hey, people are going to ask them, what are you using to cut these clips? What are you using to create this content? And then, you know, they'll be sharing your product.

12:55And guess what? When you're in the content game, people understand it's reoccurring. You have to continue to create content and therefore you get reoccurring revenue and very low churn. The great thing is that content is something that you have to continue to do and therefore you're going to have reoccurring revenue because they're going to continue to use your tool so they can continue to create content. So low churn and high retention. Beautiful. Model number five. And in my opinion, it's the most powerful business model of all. Why? Because there's a direct line between your tool and their return on investment.

13:26If your tool helps people get more customers, sell more, convert more leads, raise prices, improve lifetime value, LTV, or improve their marketing, they will pay you happily. And they will not churn because they will continue to want to make money. Some examples are like an AI sales page creator, an AI offer builder, an AI ad copy and ad creative generator so that you can easily create ads for Instagram and for Facebook. AI pricing strategy tools. I've seen an AI tool that people can install on their website, on their pricing page, where it'll automatically detect where the person is coming from, what country, and it will give them their local currency and a local price based on their willingness to pay.

14:11So therefore, prices will vary depending on where they're from and where they're tuning in from on your website. And therefore, you maximize profits because there are markets where you can make a lot more money because people are more likely to pay more money for your product. This in nerd pricing language is localization. The value proposition for this model is very clean, is very clear, and it's simply use this, make more money. It's the least resisted purchase in the world when you know that if I pay for this, I will make more money than I'm currently making. So which one should you choose?

14:44Let me make this easy. I'm going to give you a five second decision tree. Here we go. If you want to start fast, build a micro SaaS model number one. If you want low churn, build an AI money tool model number five. If you're a creator or an educator, build an AI teacher slash coach model number three. If you want to build a mass market product, build a content tool. Model number four. If you love solving business pains, build a workflow automation tool. Model number two. All five of them are where it's going in 2026. So choose what's right for you. The beauty about all of these is that all five of them scale.

15:23But hold your horses before you go. I need to make sure that you know what to avoid in 2026. Don't build a general purpose AI product. You can't compete with open AI and Google. You just can't. OK, so avoid that. Or even these types of apps that help you build other apps or websites like Lovable or Bolt. These companies are huge, have a lot of funding, and I'm not trying to discourage you, but it's much harder and there's a lot more competition there. You want to go to a blue ocean, not a red ocean. Also, don't build for everyone. AI is won by niching down, not niching up. Also, don't chase hype.

16:01Chase pain points. Pain always has a budget. When somebody's in pain, they're willing to pay. And lastly, don't hide behind the tech. The winners will be the best at distribution, not the best AI tool. So you want to make sure that you have a great tool, but that you're willing to talk about it, distribute it, and market it to the world. If you found today's episode helpful in any way, share it with a friend that you think is interested in getting into AI in 2026. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. AI is not the real opportunity. You are. AI is just leverage, is allowing you to be a better version of yourself and your business.

16:41It's a multiplier. It's a megaphone. And if you can, please, please don't forget, solve one real problem for one real group of people with one AI-powered solution and improve it every single month. Just see it as the first step, the second step. You don't have to come out with version 7000, right? start with version one, then two, then three, improve it every single day. You can build a wildly successful business in 2026. And you don't need venture capital, you don't need a big engineering team, you don't need even a co founder to get started, you need a laptop, you need a niche, you need an internet connection, you need a painful problem, and the courage to just put it out there in the world.

17:21If you found today's episode helpful, and you want more practical business lessons to help you start grow and scale your business, the best thing you could do is subscribe to this podcast. Hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app, the one that you're using right now, whether it's Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. By hitting subscribe, you get our next episode automatically, and it's the best way to support the show. It's absolutely free, and it's a way for you to commit to growing your business. And now that you've subscribed, I'll check you in the next episode.

18:20We'll be right back. Don't need that. Michael? Uh-uh. It's Walmart. Built for your business. Who knew? Eligible organizations. Additional terms apply.