Report from franceinfo and Camille Laurent of Radio France
Can you really get rich with AI? Many posts are circulating on YouTube, Instagram or X with witty phrases promising you can earn a lot of money thanks to AI. What is the situation in reality?
Is AI the goose that lays the golden eggs?
Some internet influencers claim that it is possible to become rich thanks to artificial intelligence. This is the case of Louis Key, who introduces himself as a young entrepreneur earning 200,000 euros per month and who is the first occurrence of the search "become rich AI" on Youtube, where he has nearly 20,000 subscribers.
In his video dated September 11th, 2024, entitled "The AI Revolution in 2025: How to Become Rich", the influencer describes "three ways to take advantage of the AI opportunity and become rich". And Louis Key is far from being the only one to provide advice on social networks, whether on YouTube, Instagram or X, to manage money, invest it, and make it grow. These are tempting offers that prove inconclusive according to Maxime Moffront, AI specialist and consultant at Rhapsodies.
1 - Why is "Getting rich fast" an obsession on social media?
For Maxime Moffront, "there is a real fashion effect", since the process regularly focuses on "buzz words" that are trending. The last trend is generative AI, but before it, there was "blockchain" and "bitcoin", "coaching" or even "copywriting". Each time, influencers try to find a new target by relying on the latest technological developments. This is the case of Jean-Pierre Fanguin, who became known during Covid with videos offering miracle recipes to earn money easily.
Usually, these influencers who promise the moon actually offer paid training that they try to sell to their audience. And the purpose of these training sessions evolves according to trends: “Their business is not to make people rich, but to make them believe that by becoming their customers they will know how to do it”, explains Maxime Moffront.
2 - Are "getting rich" training courses serious?
"As such, no it is not really possible to make money with AI," says Maxime Moffront, at least not by following the recommendations of influencers. The specialist has studied them closely and, according to him, there is "a strong technical lack of knowledge in the field of AI, as well as misinformation to the public". Indeed, he notes that "all types of AI are agglomerated", whether Generative or Discriminative AI for example. The risks and flaws are reduced or even forgotten, says Maxime Moffront. Similarly, "the advertised cost is well below the actual cost”: most influencers say that "everything is available for 20 euros per person", but "all the necessary tools cost much more than that," says the AI specialist.
Finally, "the effort required to achieve the desired goal is largely underestimated". In his video "The AI Revolution in 2025", Louis Key says that Open AI (which develops ChatGPT) "is a magical tool that allows you to create any service with one click". Influencers also suggest that the quality of "prompt", the instruction given to artificial intelligence, is supposed to give an optimal result without extra effort. Such promises are swept away by Maxime Moffront, since according to him such skills take time to acquire. He therefore considers that these training courses are far from being "conclusive".
3 - Can you really make money with AI?
According to Maxime Moffront, AI is a very important market, "estimated at 184 billion dollars in 2024", with "a growth of 28% expected over 10 years" and for which there is a real need for training. To use AI, "you must have knowledge in prompting in addition to your original knowledge," recalls the specialist.
"AI is a set of tools that will help to increase productivity and create new services. However, its use requires skills and efforts, which are the opposite of the tempting ways of getting rich quick that are constantly promoted on social networks", concludes Maxime Moffront.