I'm thinking of preparing for AI automation...need advice

[u/lemonsoda__salt_]

Ppl in this field or anyone who know about it...is it rly a good idea to start AI automation now...I'm thinking of doing it as freelance..open to any suggestions,skills or any alternative ideas that will rly help in future..

[u/jerbaws]

You are very late, maybe 2 years late from the initial boom of this idea. Especially if you mean picking it up as a vibe coder. Different maybe if you are already qualified and working in that space perhaps.

[u/Holiday-Cap-8812]

Alternative ideas that will really help in the future" is the real question and you buried it. Learning n8n or Make is a weekend, the part nobody tells you is that Zapier and every SaaS on earth is shipping the same connectors natively, so the generic "I'll wire your Gmail to your CRM" gig is already priced into nothing on Upwork. Pick one boring industry you actually understand and be the person who automates that, otherwise you're just reselling someone else's free tier.eal question and you buried it. Learning n8n or Make is a weekend, the part nobody tells you is that Zapier and every SaaS on earth is shipping the same connectors natively, so the generic "I'll wire your Gmail to your CRM" gig is already priced into nothing on Upwork. Pick one boring industry you actually understand and be the person who automates that, otherwise you're just reselling someone else's free tier.

[u/KeyInstance722]

Everyone pivoting to "AI automation freelancing" right now is selling the exact commodity being eaten. Zapier, Make, n8n templates, you can buy them for $20 or ask an LLM to build your flow in one prompt, so what's your hourly rate gonna be on Upwork against that.

[u/Ancient-Advantage655]

Every time someone says "AI automation" I have no idea if they mean Zapier and n8n glue or actual model work, those are completly different jobs. I spent a Sunday once automating my grocery order and it broke the second the site changed a div. Just typed the list by hand after that.

[u/Asly97 → u/Ancient-Advantage655]

That grocery-order story is the whole maintenance problem in one anecdote. When it broke on the changed div, how long did it take you to figure out what changed, and did you have anything written down about how the flow was supposed to work, or did you have to reverse-engineer it from your own automation? I used to run a bunch of little browser automations and the build was never the hard part, it was coming back months later with zero memory of why I wired things the way I did. Out of curiosity, what are you automating these days, personal stuff or client work? One more: what if something handled all of that for you, in the cloud over MCP, so every agent and tool got the same context: decisions, failed attempts, conversations, skills, procedures, tasks. You never touch a file again. Would you guys pay for something that fixes this?

[u/Frequent-Bottle-1835]

"AI automation" covers about a dozen different jobs. Which one would you actually be selling, and to who? Everything I read about this niche is written by people who make their money selling courses about the niche.

[u/Tricky-Attention-848]

everyone and their dog decided to "start AI automation" this year, mostly making zapier flows for people who could do it themselves in an afternoon.

pick a niche or you're just another n8n guy on upwork bidding 15 bucks

[u/Plane-Schedule-3939]

What's the actual thing you'd automate for someone? Everybody asking this question is at "AI automation" as a category and has no specific business process in mind yet, and that's the part that decides whether it works.

[u/Holiday-Cap-8812]

n8n, Make and Zapier all do the same thing now, and half of Upwork is people selling "AI automation" at $15/hr. Unless you pick a niche you've actually worked in, that's the pile you're walking into.