Can AI Build and Run a Business While I Sleep?

Can an AI agent come up with a business idea, create the business and run it day and night, generating an income with hardly any help from me? And could someone who has never used AI do the same?

That’s the experiment behind Honest AI Business, a new project I’m starting and documenting publicly.

After three decades of running websites, I’m handing over as much of the work as possible to AI. I want to give it a goal and see whether it can turn that instruction into a working business—with me making occasional decisions rather than doing the daily work.

The AI proposed the project and created the brand

I started by asking Grok Bot, an AI assistant that can carry out tasks autonomously, to research potential online businesses.

It investigated several ideas and presented its proposals. I rejected most of them because of copyright concerns, the amount of selling involved or how easily someone could copy them.

The proposal we settled on was Honest AI Business: a website and newsletter exploring small businesses created and operated using AI.

The AI researched the market, developed the brand, proposed the name and checked domain options. The domain is now bought. It has done the groundwork that I would normally have had to do myself, with me reviewing its proposals and choosing what to approve.

That is how I intend to continue: the AI proposes, creates and carries out the work; I provide the minimum guidance needed to keep it on track.

Working while I sleep

The next stage is to see how much responsibility it can take for building and operating the business.

The plan is for the AI to do almost everything it can: research, create content, maintain the website, prepare the newsletter, carry out promotional tasks and monitor the results.

It can work in the background while I’m asleep or busy elsewhere. I want to find out whether that ability translates into a business that keeps moving—and eventually earns money—without waiting for me to sit down at a computer.

That remains something to prove. An agent completing tasks overnight is useful, but the real test is whether those tasks produce paying customers and an income after costs.

How much will it need me?

I’ll record every occasion when I have to step in, whether that means giving more instructions, correcting its work, fixing a problem or doing something it cannot handle.

The amount of human involvement is central to the experiment. If I end up spending hours supervising it, readers will see that. If it manages to do most of the work independently, they’ll see that too.

I’ll also explain where my experience helps me make a decision. I don’t want a result that looks simple only because I’ve quietly supplied the knowledge and labour behind it.

Could someone with no AI experience repeat it?

Ultimately, I want to know whether someone starting from scratch could do the same.

Could a person with zero experience of AI give an agent instructions, approve a few decisions and let it create and run a small income-producing business?

I’ll document what they would need to learn, what the tools cost and how much time they would realistically have to spend. The Honest AI Business website and newsletter will follow the whole process, including the mistakes and failed ideas.

The ambition is to have AI doing almost all the work, including while I sleep. The experiment will show how close we can get.

Project costs recorded so far: $11.18 for the domain.
Revenue so far: €0.