Pod Insights The $100 MBA Show MBA2728 The Best AI Businesses To Start In 2026 About this episode AI is everywhere, but turning it into a real business that makes money is another story. Cool demos and flashy tools might grab attention, yet they don’t always solve real problems. If you’ve been wondering how to actually leverage AI to build something practical in 2026, this lesson is for you. In this episode, Omar breaks down some of the most promising AI business models for the year ahead. He explains what these models look like, who they’re best suited for, and the common mistakes to avoid. Most importantly, he shows you how to focus AI on solving problems people actually care about and how to choose the right path for your skills and goals. AI is here to stay, but don’t start anything yet until you hear this episode. Hit play at the top of the page and learn which businesses are worth building in 2026. Watch the episodes on YouTube: https://lm.fm/GgRPPHiSUBSCRIBEYouTube | Apple Podcast | Spotify | Podcast Feed Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript 0:00 Speaker 00 Today's episode is supported by Cash App. When it comes to Bitcoin, you may be surprised to learn that it was invented way back in 2008. But you still haven't made the jump to Bitcoin yet? Cash App makes it easy. When you buy Bitcoin on Cash App, they hold real Bitcoin for you, one to one, and you can withdraw it anytime. It works more like real money and less like something locked in an account. No extra steps, no restrictions, just access and control when you need it. With Cash App, you can actually do that. For a limited time, new customers can get $10 added to their balance. Just use code BITCOIN10 when you sign up. And don't forget this part: send at least $5 to a friend in the first two weeks. Terms apply. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank.
0:45 Speaker 00 Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners. Bitcoin services provided by Block Incorporated brand. For additional information, see the Bitcoin disclosures at cash.app/legal/podcast. Small business owners, listen up. You started your business, but you can't do it alone. And that means you have to hire people to help. That's where Justworks comes in. Justworks is a payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong, so you don't have to worry. So you can focus on the parts of running a business that you enjoy, knowing everything else is running smoothly. You don't have to worry when it just works. AI is here, and it's not going anywhere.
1:30 Speaker 00 And if you don't get your head around it, your competition will. Most people think AI is about cool tools, or prompts, or fancy demos. It's not. It's about business models. So today, I'm going to break down the five AI business models I believe are most promising for 2026. We're talking about real business models entrepreneurs can build, that they can launch, that they can profit from, without needing a 20-person engineering team. And the beauty is, 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.
2:11 Speaker 00 Welcome back to the $100 MBA Show. I'm your host, Omar Zenhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business.
2:24 Speaker 00 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. They 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
3:04 Speaker 00 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 talk about today, that you deliver instant value as fast as possible, as 10 seconds or less. Third 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
3:48 Speaker 00 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 solo founders that just want to get started. So 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 Whisperflow. Whisperflow is basically a dictation app using AI that allows me to type crazy speeds.
4:32 Speaker 00 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. Great 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.
5:16 Speaker 00 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. It does all the note-taking for you, gives you summaries, and then you can ask 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 this sounds like three things, but basically it takes notes for you. And that's what's really cool about it
6:01 Speaker 00 because I don't have to use any kind of separate or tools for this. I don't 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. This 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 all, 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.
6:43 Speaker 00 Think about the tool examples I gave you. Think 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 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. Today's episode is supported by Rosetta Stone. I absolutely love Rosetta Stone because it's helping me learn Italian faster than I can ever imagine. Why do I want to learn Italian? Well, who doesn't love Italy? But of course, Nicole's family is Italian, and I'd love to have some quick Italian conversations with her mom.
7:27 Speaker 00 And Rosetta Stone just came out with Rosetta Stone Sapphire, their biggest launch in over a decade. One of the coolest features is chat missions, which turns conversation practice into a game. With chat missions, you're put in interactive scenarios and given three objectives. A mission to accomplish, like asking how much something costs, ordering a cold brew coffee, or getting a wifi password. Along the way, you get real-time corrections and feedback to help you sound more natural and confident. It's a supportive way to build confidence before putting your language skills to use in real life. I've been using Rosetta Stone for over two years, and I actually can have some small Italian conversations with Nicole's mom now. Just the other day, she asked me, "When are you traveling?" And I said, "Dopo domani mattina," which means "after tomorrow morning."
8:11 Speaker 00 She was incredibly impressed I was able to answer in Italian. How could you put a price tag on a happy mother-in-law? If you want to take your language skills to the next level, don't wait to try Rosetta Stone Sapphire. The $100 ratio listeners can get 20% off the Rosetta Stone Sapphire subscription when they sign up today. This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages. Support for today's episode comes from Square. You probably know Square is the thing you tap your card on at your favorite coffee shop. Restaurant, salon, or local store. But for the person running that business, Square is a whole lot more than a way to get paid. Square brings the tools you need to run and grow your business together in one system. From payments on appointments, to staff, inventory, sales, and customer relationships.
8:54 Speaker 00 Whether you're selling lattes, cutting hair, detailing cars, running a restaurant, or starting something new. Square keeps your business tools working together so you can focus less on managing the moving parts, and more on what's next. And right now, listeners can get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/mba. That's S-Q-U-A-R-E.com/go/mba. Visit Square to get started, because running a business is complicated enough. Your tools don't have to be.
9:25 Speaker 00 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 will happily pay $49 to $299 a month to make something that is very painful go away. Right? So 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 Bowman, from Business Blueprint, has a great example of this.
10:09 Speaker 00 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. Most 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.
10:51 Speaker 00 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. So 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's going.
11:36 Speaker 00 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. Students 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
12:19 Speaker 00 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. Because 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 building.
13:01 Speaker 00 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. Script 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. 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 they'll be sharing your product.
13:44 Speaker 00 And 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. If 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.
14:28 Speaker 00 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, 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. So 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
15:11 Speaker 00 Or 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? Let 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.
15:57 Speaker 00 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. But 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 OpenAI and Google. You just can't, okay? 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.
16:42 Speaker 00 Also, don't build for everyone. AI is won by niching down, not niching up. Also, don't chase hype. Chase 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.
17:23 Speaker 00 AI is just leverage is allowing you to be a better version of yourself and your business. It'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 widely 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.
18:11 Speaker 00 If 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.
18:46 Speaker 01 My six year old little sister is taken from her bed and violently murdered and we don't have any answers. It's been 30 years. It's not okay. We will find this person. It's not a question of if, but when.
18:55 Speaker 02 Who killed JonBenet Ramsey? You think you know this mystery? But do you know about the DNA at the crime scene? Can science finally solve this case? And who is unknown male one?
19:06 Speaker 03 An intruder, a third party male.
19:08 Speaker 04 So unknown male one is out there somewhere.
19:11 Speaker 03 Yes.
19:12 Speaker 02 The stunning, all new Diane Sawyer investigation, tonight on ABC.
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