AI Is Creating a New Class of Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneur Ben Broca launched a company in December 2025 that now has 10,000 paying customers, projected revenue of $10 million, and zero employees. Using artificial intelligence (AI), Broka performs work that once would have required software engineers and customer-service staff. By lowering the cost of turning an idea into a business, AI is creating new paths into entrepreneurship and allowing more companies—and more types of companies—to compete for consumers. 

Broka represents a broader change in how businesses are created. Payment company Stripe has identified thousands of solo entrepreneurs on its platform whose companies generate more than $1 million in revenue. Their ranks doubled between 2023 and 2025, while the number passing $10 million nearly tripled. Stripe chief economist Ernie Tedeschi argues that AI can act as a “built-in business partner” for people who lack traditional business contacts or specialized knowledge. An entrepreneur can now receive help with coding, communications, and routine administration without raising enough money to hire staff.

More accessible entrepreneurship can also lead to businesses that eventually hire. Census Bureau research found that AI-related business applications jumped in 2023, and they were more likely than other applications to become businesses with employees. Businesses originating from AI-related applications also had higher employment and revenue. A company that starts with one person will not necessarily remain small. AI reduces the technical knowledge and startup funding needed to get a business off the ground, helping founders reach the point where they can hire. And without affordable AI assistance, some of these companies might never have launched.

The Wall Street Journal reports that AI-assisted businesses may also be easy to copy. That creates difficulties for individual founders, but it can benefit their customers. Troy Johnson used AI to create an app that helps people make better use of their credit-card benefits, which now earns around $3,000 in monthly profit without any employees. If competitors introduce similar products, Johnson will have to keep improving his app to retain customers. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has found that AI can lower barriers to entry by reducing operating costs, meaning that, when competitors can enter the market more easily, established businesses face greater pressure to improve their products or lower their prices. These competitive pressures redound to the benefit of consumers.

Broca says operating without a team has saved his company millions in salaries. That reality does not mean every avoided hire represents a job that otherwise would have existed. Broca’s business only emerged because AI enabled him to operate without hiring employees, and the counterfactual is likely that it never would have been created in the first place. A Federal Reserve analysis has found no evidence so far that existing businesses adopting more AI have reduced their job postings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also expects AI adoption to fuel growth in occupations such as software development and data science, even as demand declines for some administrative positions.

The one-person company may employ fewer people than a traditional company earning the same revenue, but it also shows how AI can turn more Americans’ ideas into operating businesses. The future of work will be shaped most significantly by the new opportunities AI makes possible.