What the Tech: Tech for side hustles
With the cost of everything rising, many of us are looking for ways to supplement our income. Thankfully, technology has made it easier to start a side hustle right from the palm of your hand. Whether you're looking to make a little extra cash or build something more substantial, your smartphone and a few key apps can be your ticket to financial freedom.
If you think you don't have the time or skills, think again. Even a hobby can be a money-maker. Platforms like Etsy are booming, with creators selling everything from handmade goods to digital files. Digital products like gift card templates, daily planners, and calendars are particularly popular. If graphic design isn't your forte, tools like Canva make it incredibly simple to create professional-looking designs.
Got office skills? Sites like Fiverr and Upwork connect freelancers with businesses needing help with accounting, marketing, or administrative tasks. Your expertise is valuable, and these platforms make it easy to find clients.
Decluttering can also be profitable. Facebook Marketplace is a great starting point for selling unwanted items, but consider exploring WhatNot for live garage sales. You can showcase your items in real time and engage with buyers directly.
Beyond selling physical goods, you can leverage your space. Apps like Sniffspot allow you to rent out your yard to pet owners, providing a safe space for their furry friends to play. If you have extra parking space, Neighbor lets you rent it out to people with RVs or extra vehicles. Even spare storage space in your garage or bonus room can be turned into a revenue stream.
Sharing your knowledge is another powerful side hustle avenue. Starting a YouTube channel is free, and you can create videos demonstrating anything from home repairs to cooking tips. Successful creators can earn significant income through advertising and sponsorships.
Finally, consider mastering emerging technologies like Chat GPT, Microsoft CoPilot, Google Gemini, or Perplexity. Businesses are increasingly seeking individuals with expertise in AI tools, and offering your services as a Chat GPT consultant could be a lucrative side hustle.
The bottom line is that there are countless opportunities to turn your interests and time into extra money. With a little effort and the right technology, you might discover a side hustle that blossoms into a full-time passion and income source.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
4 hours ago
- Forbes
How To Build Your Own Generative AI Toolkit To Stay Ahead At Work
How To Build Your Own Generative AI Toolkit To Stay Ahead At Work If you are waiting for your company to adopt AI, you are missing out on a personal opportunity to get ahead in your career. With generative AI you can build your own workflow, automate routine tasks, or create more compelling content. It doesn't take a technical background, but it helps if you have curiosity. The first question you should ask is: what is generative AI and what is a generative toolkit? Generative AI is a fancy term for artificial intelligence that creates new things by learning from existing data and using patterns to generate something original. A generative AI toolkit a collection of tools you can use to create new things like text, images, videos, or audio using AI. What Should Be In A Generative AI Toolkit To Help You Work Smarter? I use many tools that help me get things done more efficiently, and I encourage others to do the same. Don't let the sound of the following AI-related terms intimidate you. Once you start using them, they're easier than you might expect. Here are some of the tasks where I've found generative AI most useful, along with the tools that can help you do each one more effectively so you can be more productive and make a stronger impression. • Brainstorming: Use ChatGPT to generate ideas, outlines, and scripts for any content format. • Audio Creation: ElevenLabs can replicate your voice to narrate scripts. If you record your own voice or anything else, Adobe Podcast Enhance cleans up the audio and makes it studio-quality. • Visual Creation: Kling creates video clips quickly and inexpensively. Canva helps you design everything from presentations to videos to graphics. If you have a lot of expertise, you can use Photoshop as well. • Video Editing: Use Camtasia for editing and Submagic to add b-roll (video clips), captions, and supporting visuals. These platforms don't require a production team. Many are low-cost subscriptions or pay-per-use, making it easy to experiment and find your best-fit tools. How Can A Generative AI Toolkit Make You A More Effective Communicator? If you present ideas to clients, teams, or students, generative AI tools can help you create stronger, more polished content. I use them to work faster and communicate more clearly. Captions, visuals, and sound quality all contribute to how a message is received. Captions are essential, especially on mobile devices or in quiet settings. Submagic handles that seamlessly and can add visual enhancements to keep viewers engaged. Using ElevenLabs to adjust tone and pacing also improves how your message lands. These tools allow you to focus on the substance of your message while still producing something visually and audibly appealing. How Affordable Is It To Build Your Own Generative AI Toolkit? You don't need to invest thousands. Most of the tools I've mentioned are affordable and flexible. Some charge monthly. Others charge per project. Camtasia and Canva are widely used and offer significant value. Many people underestimate what Canva can do until they explore it. When I wanted to learn more, I took a short course through for under one hundred dollars. I have no affiliation with them (or any of the other tools I mention here), but the course was far more useful than a recent graduate-level university certification I completed from one of the top technology schools. That program cost thousands and didn't include real-world applications or hands-on training. How Does Curiosity Help You Get The Most From Your AI Toolkit? Learning how to use AI tools starts with curiosity. You don't need to understand every feature. You just need to be open to trying something new. People often wait until they feel completely prepared. That delay is what slows progress. I recently attended an event hosted by HRNxt, where we discussed how hard it can be to adopt new technologies. Jessica Hanan, Head of Workforce Enablement at Altruistic, told a story that captured the problem well. When cars were first introduced, some had fake horse heads attached to the front to make passengers feel more comfortable. We're in a similar place now with AI. People need help getting past their initial discomfort. One simple way to make adoption easier is to divide learning across a team. Assign one person to experiment with ChatGPT for scripting. Another can test ElevenLabs for voiceover. A third can use Adobe Podcast Enhance for audio quality. Someone else can explore for visuals. Make the group goal a final video project. That structure gives everyone a role and makes learning more purposeful. How Do You Know When Your Generative AI Toolkit Is Working? You'll know it's working when your process feels smoother. Maybe you spend less time on repetitive tasks or feel more confident creating something that used to take hours. You don't need dozens of tools. Just a few that work well for you. Once people get started, they tend to personalize their stack. One person might use their toolkit for presentations. Another may use it to create educational materials or social content. The point is to start building your own system that supports your work. What's The Best Way To Get Started With A Generative AI Toolkit? Start with one real task at work that takes too long or could be better. Choose one tool to improve that task. If you need clearer audio, try Adobe Podcast Enhance. If you want help writing, test ChatGPT. If you need short videos, explore Document what works and refine from there. This kind of simple experimentation builds your skills quickly without being overwhelming. Why Should You Build A Generative AI Toolkit Now? You don't have to wait for your company to catch up. The best time to start using AI is when you still have the space to experiment without pressure. The people gaining the most value from creating a generative AI toolkit are professionals who stay curious, take small steps, and learn by doing. This is your chance to get ahead while others hesitate. Pick one tool and share what you learn. The sooner you start, the more confident and capable you'll be when these tools become a standard part of work.
Tom's Guide
5 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
I ignored this ChatGPT setting for months — now I use it every day
Like millions of others, I use ChatGPT daily. As a power user, I frequently use ChatGPT to summarize research, create images and I even use the bot to talk me down from a spiral of recently, I revisited an underused setting buried in the app that completely changes how the bot responds. It's so useful that I really wish I had taken advantage of it sooner. No, it's not a secret plugin or a pro-only feature. It's something that's been there the whole time: custom instructions. You've probably seen the button dozens of times but never bothered to click on it. It lives quietly in your settings menu under the heading: 'Customize ChatGPT.' This customizes the chatbot's behavior. Using customized GPTs dramatically improved how I interact with the AI by tailoring the chatbot to my specific of it as crafting perfect assistants for certain tasks. Instead of re-explaining your preferences every time, a custom GPT can be set up to understand your job, writing style, tone and even the kind of responses you want (short, long, complex, simple).Custom GPTs also support powerful tools and integrations. You can grant them access to a code interpreter, web browsing, image generation or even custom APIs and uploaded this feature turns ChatGPT into an even better assistant capable of analyzing data, generating visuals or referencing your documents without extra work on your part. Plus, you can set behavioral instructions so the GPTs always respond in your preferred tone or format, saving you time and improving consistency. For me, the hardest part about using a customized GPT is literally remembering to use it. Although it's just a click away, sometimes I'll dive into a prompt before I remember there's a better way to get the best you've built a custom GPT that works well, you can reuse it as often as you like or share it with others (a great asset for teams). Whether you're managing SEO, writing emails or brainstorming ideas, having a GPT fine-tuned to your process means faster, smarter output. It's a useful way to turn a general-purpose tool into a personal or professional super-assistant. If you're like me, you'll notice that when you finally start customizing GPTS, your experience with AI will shift entirely, and for the better. Your responses will feel clearer and far more personal. You won't get generic responses, but answers that fit your style and suggestions that are more engaging. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. You can access this feature in just a few taps: Click your name (or the three dots in the bottom left) Tap Settings Select Custom Instructions You'll see two key fields: 'What would you like ChatGPT to know about you to provide better responses?'(Example: 'I'm a busy mom of three and want an empathetic, conversational tone that feels like I'm chatting with a friend.' 'How would you like ChatGPT to respond?'(Example: 'Use short paragraphs, avoid buzzwords, and give practical suggestions. Add a human tone, like you're texting a smart coworker.') Once you fill these out, that context is baked into every conversation. You don't have to reintroduce yourself or explain your tone again. ChatGPT just gets it. Custom instructions are convenient because they are like having a hat trick in your back pocket. Whatever issue you were having with ChatGPT earlier, such as answers feeling too generic or formal, this setting fixes turns the chatbot into something much closer to a real assistant and one that actually understands everything about you (well, as much as you feel comfortably telling it). It also means you'll spend less time rewriting responses and more time getting useful results. For example: When I asked it to write a note to the babysitter, it used formatting and tone I'd normally have to adjust. When I needed a list of birthday party locations in the area, it knew where I lived and pulled them up immediately. (This type of ultra personalization might not be for everyone, but I find it to be a time saver). And when I asked for snack ideas for the soccer team, the list actually sounded like something I'd submit (and easy enough for a busy mom to contribute); not something from a generic listicle generator. Best of all? It feels more personal without sacrificing quality responses. If you're using ChatGPT with memory enabled, custom instructions are the perfect complement. Memory helps the chatbot remember ongoing preferences and facts across conversations, while custom instructions give it a solid starting point for every new chat. Even if memory isn't your thing, these static instructions make ChatGPT far more efficient right out of the gate. This one setting changes how well ChatGPT can work for you. If you've been using the chatbot like a search engine or idea machine, custom instructions push it into a new category making it more like a personal AI assistant. You'll notice a difference when it starts answering like someone who knows your voice, your goals and how you think. Do you use custom GPTs? Let me know in the comments!
Gizmodo
16 hours ago
- Gizmodo
OpenAI Wants to get College Kids Hooked on AI
AI chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT have been shown repeatedly to provide false information, hallucinate completely made-up sources and facts, and lead people astray with their confidently wrong answers to questions. For that reason, AI tools are viewed with skepticism by many educators. So, of course, OpenAI and its competitors are targeting colleges and pushing its services on students—concerns be damned. According to the New York Times, OpenAI is in the midst of a major push to make ChatGPT a fixture on college campuses, replacing many aspects of the college experience with AI alternatives. According to the report, the company wants college students to have a 'personalized AI account' as soon as they step on campus, same as how they receive a school email address. It envisions ChatGPT serving as everything from a personal tutor to a teacher's aide to a career assistant that helps students find work after graduation. Some schools are already buying in, despite the educational world initially greeting AI with distrust and outright bans. Per the Times, schools like the University of Maryland, Duke University, and California State University have all signed up for OpenAI's premium service, ChatGPT Edu, and have started to integrate the chatbot into different parts of the educational experience. It's not alone in setting its sights on higher education, either. Elon Musk's xAI offered free access to its chatbot Grok to students during exam season, and Google is currently offering its Gemini AI suite to students for free through the end of the 2025-26 academic year. But that is outside of the actual infrastructure of higher education, which is where OpenAI is attempting to operate. Universities opting to embrace AI, after initially taking hardline positions against it over fears of cheating, is unfortunate. There is already a fair amount of evidence piling up that AI is not all that beneficial if your goal is to learn and retain accurate information. A study published earlier this year found that reliance on AI can erode critical thinking skills. Others have similarly found that people will 'offload' the more difficult cognitive work and rely on AI as a shortcut. If the idea of university is to help students learn how to think, AI undermines it. And that's before you get into the misinformation of it all. In an attempt to see how AI could serve in a focused education setting, researchers tried training different models on a patent law casebook to see how they performed when asked questions about the material. They all produced false information, hallucinated cases that did not exist, and made errors. The researchers reported that OpenAI's GPT model offered answers that were 'unacceptable' and 'harmful for learning' about a quarter of the time. That's not ideal. Considering that OpenAI and other companies want to get their chatbots ingrained not just in the classroom, but in every aspect of student life, there are other harms to consider, too. Reliance on AI chatbots can have a negative impact on social skills. And the simple fact that universities are investing in AI means they aren't investing in areas that would create more human interactions. A student going to see a tutor, for example, creates a social interaction that requires using emotional intelligence and establishing trust and connection, ultimately adding to a sense of community and belonging. A chatbot just spits out an answer, which may or may not be correct.
