Forget Retirement: How AI is Empowering a New Wave of 50+ Solopreneurs

How AI Makes Your Years of Experience More Valuable Than Ever

Image by the author using Midjourney.

Are you 50+ and worried AI might push you out of the job market?

Or make it harder to start your own business?

Think again.

Imagine a world where your decades of experience become your superpower, not your weakness.

Where AI doesn't replace you, but amplifies your value exponentially.

Where being 50+ isn't a career death sentence, but the beginning of your most lucrative chapter yet.

That world is here, right now.

This world isn't about being 50+ and surviving the AI revolution.

It's about how this new AI world is primed for you to thrive in it, as a 50+ Solopreneur.

In this post, we will cover:

• How Business & Work is Being Disrupted by AI

• The 50+ Crowd Can Surf the Coming Wave of AI & Automation

• My Personal Story: 50+ Employee to AI-Powered Solopreneur

How Business & Work is Being Disrupted by AI

I've seen first hand as a Data Scientist and AI Consultant who's worked for large companies and small AI startups, how AI is transforming businesses.

Here are just a few examples of companies using AI right now:

1. JPMorgan Chase: Implemented COiN, an AI-powered virtual assistant that analyses financial documents, reducing 360,000 hours of manual work annually to mere seconds. This automation has improved accuracy and freed employees for more strategic tasks.

2. Unilever: Uses AI in recruitment through HireVue, analysing video interviews to streamline hiring. In marketing, they use Microsoft Copilot to accelerate campaign launches and incorporate market data automatically, saving 50,000 hours in candidate interview time.

3. Siemens Healthineers: Deployed AI assistants in medical diagnostics, enhancing the analysis of medical imaging and data. This has led to more accurate and quicker diagnoses, improving patient outcomes.

4. DHL: Implemented AI-powered logistics optimization, using machine learning to analyze data and optimize delivery routes in real time. This has significantly improved delivery efficiency and reduced fuel consumption.

However, one obvious question is, how could this affect jobs?

A recent McKinsey report looked into this and found:

We previously found that about half the activities people are paid to do globally could theoretically be automated using currently demonstrated technologies. Very few occupations—less than 5 per cent—consist of activities that can be fully automated.

However, in about 60per cent of occupations, at least one-third of the constituent activities could be automated, implying substantial workplace transformations and changes for all workers.

Their analysis highlighted that-reaching impact of AI on businesses and work:

They concluded:

We will all need creative visions for how our lives are organised and valued in the future, in a world where the role and meaning of work start to shift.

So the potential impact on job losses is considerable.

However, could this disruption to employment and businesses bring new opportunities?

The 50+ Crowd Can Surf the Coming Wave of AI

While it's perhaps human nature to focus more on threats rather than opportunities, our future selves would probably thank us for trying to make the most of those opportunities.

So what are those opportunities?

In a nutshell, the same AI & automation technologies that are reducing the need for human work from businesses, is the same technology that is making it even easier for people to start up and scale up their businesses as solopreneurs.

Furthermore, the demographic usually written off from the workforce first and least valued i.e. 50+ older workers, have the most to gain from using AI & automation to set up their businesses.

How so?

While AI & Automation is a powerful enabling technology, able to perform certain tasks better and at lower cost, getting it done requires domain expertise and experience, which something the 50+ crowd have a huge advantage with over younger workers.

Furthermore, one of the things that makes AI systems themselves more valuable and useful is when they are given domain expertise.

This means there is huge potential for 50+ soloprenuers to create AI services that embody their knowledge, and provide that in a way that can scale far beyond what you could provide alone.

AI enables older workers to essentially productise their valuable domain expertise and experience and provide that value at scale.

This radical transformation of business by AI shatters many stereotypes about the value of older people in business, and turns conventional assumptions on their head.

A recent article 'AI breaks ageism barriers for older entrepreneurs' highlighted what this means for the future of business, older workers and work, and our beliefs about it.

It made several key points:

• AI is breaking down ageism barriers for older entrepreneurs, allowing them to leverage new technologies and compete with younger developers

• Katerina Stroponiati founded Brilliant Minds, a VC firm focusing on funding startups created by entrepreneurs aged 50 and older.

• Older founders (50+) have three times more chances of a successful outcome or IPO compared to those who are 30 but face discrimination

• The traditional view of ageing and retirement is outdated, given increased life expectancy and health span.

• AI has shifted the focus from technical skills to domain expertise and effective communication, areas where older workers often excel.

• The advantage younger people have with up-to-date technical knowledge is diminishing as AI allows older workers to catch up and leverage new technologies.s

• Older entrepreneurs bring valuable experience, wisdom, and deep industry knowledge to startups

• The demographic shift towards an ageing population necessitates a rethinking of work and retirement frameworks

• Stroponiati argues that people are not getting worse with age but are often at their best in their 50s and 60s

On the 'shyness of older founders' Stroponiati said:

The majority of startups, whether the founders are 30 or 50 years old, are using AI as a copilot... These founders are experts in their fields, leveraging AI to accelerate their work… Additionally, the new revolution isn't digital -- it's demographic. The population is ageing, and for the first time in U.S. history, we'll have an equal number of Gen Z and boomer generations -- around 70 million each. We're going to have a multigenerational society, and if we focus on the youth, this doesn't make sense.

And how does AI make age less relevant? She said:

We have in mind that you can't keep up with technology as you get older, but that's not the case. For example, I invested in a company through Brilliant Minds, founded by a 56-year-old woman who has had an amazing career in e-commerce. She's not technical, but she's using AI to build a platform to improve e-commerce. She knows the problems in the industry, and she knows the solutions.

So what advantages does AI give the 50+ crowd? She explains:

When we think about how AI works, it requires us to be experts in our field and to be able to communicate effectively with AI, regardless of age. To do that, you need a deep knowledge of your space and to be a great communicator…. These are the skills that everyone, regardless of age, needs to develop because of AI... The centre, the value, lies with great communicators who can, with clarity, communicate to the machine. Older founders are better at this because of experience and wisdom.

And what about ongoing agism in businesses and society more generally?

Stoponaiati has some interesting observations:

In the corporate world, I would say the traditional view of older workers is outdated. The retirement system was designed when life expectancy was much lower, but today, if you're healthy at 60, statistics show you could live in good health until 90 or even 95, especially for women. This current framework of retirement doesn't make sense. I'm 40. I started my first startup at 26, yet I was trusted with millions. I have so much more knowledge and experience now, and I feel I'm my best version. Imagine the value of someone at 50 or 60 -- you're not getting worse with age, you're getting better.

My Story: 50+ Employee to AI Solopreneur

My career path is a good example of how AI & automation offer new opportunities for older workers to use their unique knowledge and experience to create their own businesses.

I've worked as a technical professional for over 20 years in many roles as a web developer, data scientist and AI consultant, for both large companies and small agencies and AI startups most recently.

Last year after my last role at an AI startup I wanted to branch out and create my own business, this was daunting given I've been employed my whole life, and it's certainly been a challenging year finding my way with this.

However, I'm now in a position where I have 2 growing businesses, both hugely enabled by AI in different ways.

My 2 businesses are:

• My substack publication The FuturAI: Helping people learn about AI with educational guides, courses & articles

• My AI Agency: Helping Solopreneurs and businesses understand how AI & automation can help their businesses and I provide these solutions

Here are a few ways AI & automation are helping me:

• Using Claude AI to brainstorm article ideas, and give me feedback on my writing

• Using Midjourney AI to create stunning images for marketing and posts

• I have an AI automation that creates draft email replies to business emails using ChatGPT, a draft means it does 80% of the work while I stay in control.

• I use another AI Agent to respond to client enquiries, automatically take bookings, schedule Google meets and send meeting invites.

• I have an AI automation that regularly scans Google Analytics data for key metrics and then creates and sends me a report.

• I'm developing an AI chatbot that takes my expertise in AI and will be able to offer advice and answer questions on a range of topics

I'm also using AI & automation to help clients level up and do more in less time.

One of my recent clients Joanne is a photographer, who knows she needs to be on social media especially Instagram, but doesn't have time to post regularly.

I've just finished creating an AI automation for her that uses a Google spreadsheet. When she has time, she updates this sheet with text and images for her Instagram posts.

Then at a regular time each week, the AI automation will take those post details from the sheet and post them on Instagram in a given format at a precise day and time each week.

This way, Joanne does not have to drop what she doing to post on social media.

When she has time she updates the sheet with post details, and the AI automation, her new AI social media manager, takes charge of ensuring the right posts are posted on Instagram at the right time.

This leaves Joanne with more time to focus on what she enjoys most, working with her great clients and taking amazing photos.

Meanwhile, her AI social media manager is working hard to make sure she has a regular and growing social media reach over time, at little cost, while she remains in control.

AI and automation is a hugely disruptive technology that is transforming all businesses: big and small.

While this is a threat to the old way of doing business and employment, this opens up new possibilities, especially for the 50+ crowd.

If you are 50+, you can use AI to create and scale your own business as a solopreneur more easily than ever before.

You can use your valuable expertise and experience to take control of your future & destiny, using AI to support your own business, for your best years ever.