A Comprehensive List of Artificial Intelligence Business Ideas

By Sudeep Srivastava
10. min read
Last update on: May 10, 2021

Even though AI has established itself as a technology that is a growth and popularity magnet, the question of what are the business ideas using AI, is what every innovation-driven entrepreneur is still actively seeking an answer to.

Now the answer that the internet has to offer to which are the most profitable artificial intelligence startup ideas and other semantic questions is a mesh. One that sends entrepreneurs in the direction of value offering, competitor analysis, and pricing models. 

All ending with very few truly useful insights. 

Ensuring that we are not another non-useful dead end, let’s walk you through the exact sectors and categories which are and are poised to continue making money in AI. Ones that would give you a headstart of where your Artificial Intelligence startup ideas journey should start from. 

But before we head on to the stage of revelation, let us look at the market state of the technology which has unanticipatedly made its place in the Profit and Loss statement of various businesses across industries, across the globe. 

Here’s your answer to how big is the market highlighting the benefits of AI in business

AI Market Structure

The world wide web is filled with data and statistics talking about the many facets of Artificial Intelligence – its sub-technologies, use cases, adoption rate, etc. 

And one commonality that has time and again surfaced itself in all the researches is Artificial Intelligence Growth. 

The growth trip that AI is on for the past many years has made it a part of not just the many innovation-centric AI business ideas but also of the list of top tech trends

It is this value and growth based nature of AI that has made the technology a trump card tech offering of businesses looking for a competitive advantage and high revenue count. 

AI-Market-Structure

Now even though the present and artificial intelligence future have established it as a gold-mine-like technology that favors every industry and domain that invests in AI business ideas, there are only a few which make the most money and become successful AI business models

In fact, this preference is not just limited to which industry will make the most money through AI. The classification is present in multiple other categories, such as which country will benefit the most from AI, which the AI sub-categories would be most profitable, etc. But in order to understand the best business ideas using AI, it is important to know the two segments which generally dominate the AI landscape. 

Core AI solutions – These are business models that keep AI at the center. They cannot function without the technology

AI tools – These companies provide AI infrastructure and tools for other companies to use like IBM Watson or Google AI algorithms

Product or service enablers – These Artificial Intelligence business ideas revolve around using the technology to better the service or product. Take for example Netflix using AI to give recommendations to the users

Let us start with looking into the different categories individually, giving you – an entrepreneur – the insight into which industry or which country would deem the most profitable as AI startup business models

What Is the Industry Wise Impact of AI?

The total yearly value of AI across 19 different industries in the context of the global economy came out to be $3.5 trillion and $5.8 trillion. The number is around 40% of the total $9.5 trillion and $15.4 trillion yearly impact which can be enabled by using analytical techniques in its entirety. 

Even though the benefits of AI in business can be seen across a wide spectrum of industries, there are a few which are forecasted to generate the most revenue – ones that answer which is the best industry to make money in AI. And unlike what was presumed, the profit projection is not just limited to the Healthcare sector or to Artificial Intelligence in Financial Markets. There are a number of other sectors in line to gather their intelligence-driven profit. 

The figure below highlights the same, giving you a peek into which sectors would prove to be the best AI business ideas.

share of AI impact on total impact

Taking the discussion back to the 19 industries that we mentioned at the start of this section, here are the industry-wise impact of AI, both in terms of the average dollar impact and the percent effect on the industry’s revenue. 

impact and the percent effect on the industry’s revenue

Which Countries Should Your AI Business Strategy Include?

The true artificial intelligence industry growth lies in the country it is operating in. 

A report by Accenture – Artificial Intelligence is the future of growth – studied the scope that AI carries in affecting nation-wide economies across the globe. 

Here are their findings –

Most AI Benefitting Nation

* Baseline shows the expected annual economic growth rate under current assumptions about the Artificial Intelligence future. 

** AI scenario is the valuation that shows the expected economic growth once the impact of AI has been absorbed into the economy. 

While the graph highlights that the USA is the nation that is most inclined to be benefitted from the advent of Artificial Intelligence, other nations are also not falling behind. 

There are a number of nations that will be seeing the result of artificial intelligence’s impact on the economy

Other nations like Japan, the UK, France, and Germany have all individually made announcements around their AI strategies. 

For example,  President Macron announced that the French government would be spending around $1.85 billion over the coming five years for supporting the growth of the AI ecosystem, which would include the development of large-scale datasets. 

Companies like Google’s DeepMind and Samsung are committed to opening up new labs in Paris, while Fujitsu is also planning to expand its Paris-based research center. The UK also announced its plan to push $1.4 billion into AI, which would be used for funding 1000 PhDs in the AI domain. 

The crux of all these worldwide AI adoptions is that while the inclusion will be global, there are some nations that are most likely to get maximum profit for AI based startups compared to their counterparts

Which AI sub-technologies Should Your Startup App Development Process Include?

There are many companies operating in the world today that claim to be using AI in their services or applications. However, AI in its broader sense is simply an application that mimics the cognitive functions that humans associate with.

On a much lower level, AI is a programmed rule which determines machine to act in a specific way in specific situations. However, in revenue generation and true business benefitting sense, when we talk about Artificial Intelligence, we are mainly talking about its two main technology sub-parts – Deep learning and Machine Learning. 

Deep learning and Machine Learning

There are other important AI technologies as well that are the drivers of the revenue that businesses and governments can generate through AI inclusion in their systems like Regression Analysis, Descriptive statistics, etc.  

Measuring the future of all these AI-powered technologies, a study by McKinsey Global Institute established that there are three technologies that will primarily be used in AI applications – Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, and Transfer Learning. 

Measuring-the-future-of-all-these-AI-powered-technologies

Another study by Allied Market Research identified that Machine Learning will be one of the top revenue generators for an AI startup in the coming time, followed by NLP and Image Processing technologies.

Global Artificial Intelligence Market

Which Business Domain Will Make Money in AI?

It is not just the industries that AI is carrying a glaring impact on but also the individual business domains. 

Now although the impact of AI on business models is not limited to any or a specific set of job areas, there are a few that are expected to carry maximum value potential once incorporated with the power of AI. 

Here are the business domains that are able to make maximum money at the back of AI –

AI's Potential Impact

In case you are planning to offer enterprise-level AI solutions, covering these domains can have a positive impact on your revenue charts to a great extent. 

Which use cases will make money with Artificial Intelligence

A study by Tractica Research forecasts that the revenue count which is generated from the direct or indirect application of AI in a system is going to reach $36.8 billion by 2025. 

When we talk about the inclusion of AI in a system, what we are actually talking about are the different use cases that surround the AI in a business ecosystem. Here are the use cases of AI-based mobile app for startups that are guesstimated to generate maximum revenue for their parent company.

AI Revenues from Top 10 Use Cases

If you look at the graph closely, you will find that around 60% of the cases are based on Big Data while 40% surround object and image recognition. Meaning the companies offering either of the two services are poised to see a very steep growth in the coming time. 

What Are the Most Profitable AI Startup Ideas?

Healthcare startups

There are a number of use cases around inclusion of AI in healthcare setup. For all the three subsets of the sector – patients, doctors, and healthcare agencies, AI has proven to be a boon. Whether you look at AI backed automation in EHR, scheduling for doctors, or health tracking for patients, the role of AI in the domain is massive. 

Security solutions 

We are going to see a rise in security focused AI use cases in the coming time. Businesses are using the technology for tracking change in user patterns, abnormalities in user journey, and incorrect pin entries, etc. We are expecting that in the age of hacks and breaches, the combination of AI and security will also grab investors’ attention in the coming years.

Energy sector systems 

The data-driven energy sector will be focused on improving forecasting, efficiency, trading, and accessibility. The application of the technology in the energy sector will be around – electricity trading, intelligent power consumption, intelligent energy storage, energy storage facilitation, etc. 

Fintech startups 

The role of AI in the Fintech domain is in an expansive mode. Right from payments to fraud detection, the technology has found multiple use cases in the sector. 

Even with the abundance of use cases around AI in Fintech, the sector is still ripe for data-centric innovation. For an entrepreneur looking to enter the financial domain, now would be the right time to make the move. 

What Do These Economic Values Mean?

The fact that the Artificial Intelligence industry is set to offer monetary profits across a wide spectrum, is a sign that we are entering a golden era that will be based on Artificial Intelligence capabilities. 

Standing at today, it is safe to say that no matter what the AI idea of app development for startup is, the time to come will entitle you to monetary benefits. 

However, the different aspects that we read above, when dissected, appear to be carrying a theme. A theme that would define how the economic values are moving and where’s the money in AI.

Here’s the crux of the prevalent theme. 

  • While global tech giants have the expertise to drive the AI movement and create a sort of rulership on the major chunk of money that the ArtificiaI Intelligence industry is bound to make, Artificial Intelligence startups are not lagging very behind too. 
  • Startups that attend to the use cases which are cash cows of the Artificial Intelligent domain carry the probability to come across as winners. 
  • The government bodies, like companies, are also now finding themselves competing in the AI race. While on one hand China and the USA have declared their intent to be the world leader in AI by the next 10 years, European nations are measuring the restrictions that their strong data privacy would pose. 
  • Technologies wise, Machine Learning and Deep Learning have placed themselves at the top revenue-generating position. And this position has made companies that offer these services a gold mine which is going to make money for a very long term. 

Knowing which categories hold the answer to how to make money with AI is not enough. It all remains incomplete until you know how your AI startup would make money. And it won’t just happen with you launching a product or service belonging to the money-making industry. 

How Do AI Startups Make Money?

The only true answer to how do AI startups make money is the combination of their access to data sets and capabilities. 

For your AI project management practices to be truly successful, you will have to make three facets of your business very strong.

Secrets Behind Successful AI Startups

Data Sets

The success of your AI startup and the answer to how do AI companies make money ultimately depends on the data set that they work with. The more quantitative it is, the greater will be the playing field for AI engineers. 

But, gathering data is not easy. Everyday security breaches like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica instance have made it all the more difficult for a startup app development company to ask for data. 

The solution to this crippling restriction is a partnership. Several tech giants are known to partner with hospitals or payment companies or even enterprises to get data for them to then analyze. 

Domain Expertise 

More often than not, insights that create a breakthrough innovation comes from having an in-depth idea of the industry or domain. Only when you know an industry inside out, you will be able to identify areas where AI will create a breakthrough and get the answer to how to make money in AI. 

Skilled AI Talent

Your team of AI engineers and researchers will ultimately drive your AI business. The more skilled your associated manpower is, the greater the chances of you delivering intelligent services to industries that will make money with Artificial Intelligence. 

Now that you have the exact know-how of how to make money in AI, it is time for the Next Step. 

The step that will bring you on the path of earning guaranteed high revenues and business popularity. Get in touch with our AI engineers to start your AI journey. 

Sudeep Srivastava
Sudeep Srivastava
DIRECTOR & CO-FOUNDER
In search for strategic sessions?.
Let us understand your business thoroughly and help you
strategies your digital product..

Related Articles: