Cut the Crap: Are people really making $100k passively with AI?
Short answer is NO if you cannot be bothered to read on...
Picture this: Your doom-scrolling TikTok or YouTube and up pops a chipper influencer claiming they made $100,000 in “passive” income thanks to some AI hack or automation trick - no coding, no effort, just easy money while they sleep. It sounds magical: set up a few ChatGPT scripts or social media bots, then kick back as the cash rolls in. But let’s cut through the noise. Are these people legit, or are they selling snake oil? Spoiler alert: it’s mostly BS - and even when AI and automation do help make money, it’s never as effortless as the clickbait claims.
The Social Media Hype Machine (and What’s Behind It)
On social platforms, especially TikTok and YouTube, a cottage industry of “AI passive income” gurus has exploded. They flaunt screenshots of large earnings and promise you can do it too with a simple formula or two. Usually, it goes something like: “I earned six figures by auto-generating content - you can copy my method!” However, if you look closely, many of these personalities have a hidden agenda. Often, they’re making their real money not from the AI trick itself, but by selling the dream to others. As one marketing professional quipped about these six-figure claims: “Are they selling a course? Yes. Then it’s bullshit.” In fact, a common red flag is exactly that - after the flashy income claims comes a pitch for a pricey online course or an affiliate link to some “automation software.”
Think about it: If someone truly found a secret to effortless $100k income, why would they broadcast it to millions of strangers for free? One sceptic noted the obvious: if they were really raking in that kind of cash, “they have no time or motivation to sell a course teaching you how.” Yet selling courses is time-consuming - and ironically, that’s where many of these so-called gurus make their money. They lure people with outrageous success stories and then profit from course sales, referral commissions, or ad revenue. It’s the oldest trick in the get-rich-quick playbook, now repackaged for the AI era. As another observer pointed out, it’s often a closed loop: people claiming to make money online are making money - by convincing others to buy into the same scheme (essentially, selling “how to make money” guides). In other words, the real product is the dream itself.
None of this is to say no one has ever earned substantial income with help from AI or automation. Some have - but those rare cases are usually drowned out by 999 others spreading basic fluff packaged as a “$X-figures system”. The promise of easy money is powerful bait, especially in tough economies. “The promise of easy money is catnip to many people,” writes Inc. magazine, and the rise of AI is making it easier for scammers to prey on that hope. If you’re being told you can make “thousands of dollars a week while you sleep” with no work at all, that should set off alarm bells. It usually is too good to be true.
When AI Income Schemes Go Wrong
It’s not just individual TikTokers exaggerating - some full-blown companies have ridden the AI hype to defraud people. In fact, regulators are now cracking down on deceptive schemes that promise passive income through AI. Consider Ascend Ecom, an operation the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shut down in 2024. Ascend Ecom convinced folks to invest tens of thousands of dollars in “AI-powered” online stores with guaranteed success. The pitch was that their secret AI tools would run e-commerce storefronts and generate big passive profits. The reality? “Most consumers [were] left with depleted bank accounts and hefty credit card bills with little to no profit.” The FTC alleges Ascend Ecom swindled people out of at least $25 million with these false AI promises.
And it wasn’t an isolated case. Another outfit, Passive Scaling (also known as FBA Machine), boasted “supposed testimonials of clients earning over $100,000 monthly” from its AI-automated stores. Yes, they literally advertised six-figure monthly passive income to lure in customers. In truth, those earnings “rarely materialised” for anyone. What did materialise were steep fees and “investments” (often tens of thousands of dollars upfront) that went up in smoke. The FTC stepped in here as well - a court order halted this scheme, calling out its deceptive earnings claims.
Even established tech services have crossed the line by overhyping “AI” capabilities. The FTC charged an AI writing tool, Rytr, for marketing itself as a generator of authentic product reviews - when in fact it often spewed irrelevant or misleading text. Subscribers who blindly used its auto-generated reviews risked deceiving customers and breaking the law. In settling the case, Rytr had to agree to stop any service that produces fake reviews. The pattern here is clear: “Using AI tools to trick, mislead, or defraud people is illegal,” the FTC chair warned, and they are actively policing outrageous claims.
Even the classic affiliate marketing scam has gotten an AI-era refresh. The FTC recently shut down a scheme called “Click Profit” that took millions from would-be passive income seekers by “falsely promising consumers they could earn big profits through online sales” via a proprietary AI system. The scammers even pretended to have ties to big brands like Nike and Disney to seem legit. Of course, they were just collecting hefty payments from hopeful buyers, not delivering real profit. Legitimate affiliate programs, by contrast, don’t charge huge upfront fees or guarantee riches; they just pay you a small cut if you successfully refer a sale. The moment someone promises guaranteed returns or asks for a big payment for “insider AI secrets,” you should smell a rat.
Bottom line: There’s a growing trail of legal actions and complaints making it plain that a lot of these “AI passive income” opportunities are either overblown fantasies or outright scams. From fake AI-powered stores to bogus automation tools, the common denominator is false promises of effort-free money. Real life tends not to work that way.
The Truth: AI + Automation ≠ No Work (Sorry!)
Let’s get one thing straight: AI and automation can be fantastic tools. They really can save time, streamline tasks, and even open new ways to earn money. But - and this is a big “but” - they are not a magic money-printing machine. In practice, making any serious income with AI assistance still requires skill, strategy, and yes, work. Think of AI as a power tool: in capable hands it can accelerate a job, but you still must know what you’re doing (and you must plug it in and guide it!). The hustlers on TikTok gloss over this. They love to imply you just push a button and cash flows passively. The reality is closer to starting any small business or project: you’ll put in time and effort, especially upfront, and there’s risk involved.
For example, some content creators have indeed used AI to help launch YouTube channels or blogs. There’s a whole trend of “faceless” YouTube automation, where people use AI voices, auto-generated scripts, and stock footage to make videos en masse. Sounds hands-free, right? In truth, those who succeed treat it like a full-time job at the start. One person who built 20+ automated YouTube channels in a year admitted it was “by far [his] most profitable venture”, but only because “it took a lot of work, delegation and building processes to get here.” He had to research topics, test different content styles, and continually tweak his approach. In his own words, “AI YouTube automation absolutely works, but it’s not an overnight success or a total hands-off cash cow machine. It’s a real business and you need systems, consistent effort, iteration, failing and learning along the way.” In other words, he hustled for months to make it seem passive later on.
That sentiment applies across the board. Whether it’s using AI to write e-books, create niche websites, or run drop shipping stores, you must put in the legwork to stand out from thousands of others doing the exact same thing. Sure, you can ask ChatGPT to spit out a blog post in seconds - but so can everyone else. If you flood Amazon with a dozen AI-generated e-books, don’t be surprised if they drown in a sea of similar low-quality content. In fact, Amazon’s marketplace has been “deluged” with AI-produced books that are easy to churn out but often riddled with unhelpful or dangerous misinformation. This flood of junk has made it harder, not easier, for any individual book to succeed without genuine quality. Platforms eventually catch on, and audiences do, too. One YouTube commenter derided the AI-spam videos as “slop” and noted that YouTube’s algorithm is getting better at detecting and demoting such garbage content. The more people try to game the system with mass automation, the more the platforms tighten their guardrails.
Then there’s the “no skills needed” myth. Many AI side-hustle evangelists insist anyone can do it. While it’s true you don’t need to be a programmer to use tools like ChatGPT, you do need to learn how to use them effectively. Crafting good prompts, fact-checking AI output, editing for quality - these are skills you acquire with practice. If you’re auto-posting on social media, you need marketing know-how to actually engage an audience (simply dumping dozens of AI-made posts typically won’t attract followers). If you’re generating content, you need domain knowledge or a creative angle to make it interesting. Those “zero effort” influencers conveniently skip the part where they spent significant time understanding the platform or the market. Even the success stories often have a background: maybe they knew copywriting, or SEO, or video editing, which they then augmented with AI. Calling it “no effort, no skill” is just false. At best, AI shifts some of the effort - e.g., writing a first draft or automating routine tasks - but you still must refine the output and steer the ship.
Work Smarter, Yes - But You Still Have to Work
The truth is that passive income has always been a bit of a misnomer. In classic passive income streams (rental properties, stock dividends, etc.), you invest either money or time upfront and reap returns later. It’s never truly “something for nothing.” AI doesn’t change that equation; it just offers new tools to leverage. So no, you can’t reliably get rich by having ChatGPT churn out mediocre content while you lounge on a beach. What you can do is use ChatGPT or other AI to work smarter: to prototype ideas faster, to automate menial tasks, to generate content drafts, to analyse data trends - all of which can give you a leg up if you pair them with genuine effort and creativity.
For instance, an entrepreneur might use AI to draft product descriptions or social media posts, freeing up time to focus on strategy and networking. A small e-commerce business could use automation to handle customer emails or inventory updates, improving efficiency and profitability. A freelancer might use AI to brainstorm article ideas or code snippets, enabling them to serve more clients. In all these cases, AI is a force multiplier - but the person still needs to provide oversight, originality, and a value-add that the baseline AI cannot. The money comes because they deliver value or solve a problem for customers, not because they found a way to cheat the system.
There’s also a cautionary tale in those who try to take the path of least resistance. If you set up some one-click automation to spam ads or content in hopes of passive ad revenue, you might earn a trickle at first, but it’s unsustainable. Algorithms get updated, audiences wise up, and you might even get banned for violating policies. Sustainable income, even “passive” style, usually means building something substantial - a brand, a portfolio of quality content, a software tool people actually want, etc. That doesn’t happen overnight, and definitely not in a few weeks as the hype videos often imply.
No Free Rides, But Real Opportunities
At the end of the day, the idea that “anyone can easily make $100K passive income with AI” belongs in the same fantasy bin as unicorns and alchemy. The internet is overflowing with boastful videos and posts about effortless AI riches, but when you peel back the curtain, you’ll almost always find hard work, upfront investment, and often a dash of deceit in the mix. As the FTC and others have shown, many of the loudest “AI passive income” schemes are outright scams or gross exaggerations. And the genuine success stories? They tend to involve people who treated their AI-aided project as a serious venture - learning the ropes, putting in hours, and often failing a few times before finding what works.
So, next time you see someone on TikTok bragging about their five-figure monthly income from an AI autopilot, take it with a mountain of salt. By all means, be excited about AI and use it to boost your productivity or creativity. There are real ways to make money or build a business with these technologies, and it’s true that today’s tools can automate tasks that once took entire teams. Just remember that your mileage may vary - and effort in usually correlates with money out. In the world of commerce, AI is not a cheat code that lets you skip to the final level; it’s more like a power-up that can help you play the game better.
In short: cut the crap and end the noise. Don’t fall for the fairy tales of “money for nothing” - with AI or otherwise. Instead, focus on how you can use AI and automation realistically: to save time, to enhance real skills, and to create value that people will pay for. Do that, and you might see your income grow - maybe not to $100,000 overnight, but genuinely and sustainably over time. And you won’t have to dupe anyone or buy a shady course to get there. Work smarter, keep learning, and stay skeptical of easy fixes - that’s the real “secret” to success in the AI age (and any age, really).
Sources: The scepticism of marketing communities and FTC crackdowns confirm that most “passive income with AI” claims are hype or scams. The FTC has busted multiple schemes (Ascend Ecom, Passive Scaling, “Click Profit”, etc.) that falsely promised AI-driven riches. Meanwhile, experienced creators note that using AI effectively still requires substantial work and learning, not magic automation - it’s “not an overnight success or a total hands-off cash cow” as one practitioner put it. Always approach grand income claims with caution: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.