The dream of building a scalable business has always come with a catch: at some point, you need a larger team. More clients require more resources. Growth demands more infrastructure. For many, that’s no longer the case.
Technology, especially AI, has fundamentally changed what one person can accomplish, unlocking new possibilities for how businesses scale without traditional constraints. Whether or not the first solo unicorn emerges this year, solopreneurs now have the tools to make it happen.
At Zoom, along with our partner Upwork, we surveyed 1,011 AI-using solopreneurs and small business owners to understand how they’re actually using AI to grow. What we found surprised even us, and it should change how you think about scaling your business.
The 4 Ways Solopreneurs Are Using AI as Leverage
1—Recovering Time
Time is the ultimate constraint for solopreneurs. AI is giving it back, not by working faster, but by automating the repeatable tasks that can plateau a solopreneur.
- Meeting summaries and follow-ups that used to take 30 minutes now generate automatically for review in a few minutes
- Email responses that required careful drafting now start with AI-generated templates
- Data entry, scheduling, and transcription disappear into the background
Our findings: 91% of small businesses say AI has reduced the time they spend on administrative tasks.
The result: More time for strategy, client relationships, and the creative work that actually differentiates your business.
2—Reducing Costs
Traditionally, scaling meant spending more on contractors, tools, and infrastructure. AI helps solopreneurs reduce, redirect, and target that spend on strategic support.
- Marketing content that would have cost thousands to produce can now be generated in-house
- Design work that previously required freelancers can be prototyped with AI tools
- Customer service that typically demanded a human touch can now be partially automated
Our findings: 73% are using AI to execute core operations, from marketing (51%) and design (49%) to staffing (24%) and security (23%).
The result: Lower cost per customer, higher margins, and the ability to experiment without breaking the bank.
3—Driving Revenue
AI can be your digital clone. It can replicate your expertise, voice, and approach, transforming what was once impossible to capture in a playbook into a seamless extension of yourself.
- Personalizing outreach to hundreds of prospects in your voice
- Analyzing market trends to identify new opportunities that you would spot yourself
- Creating content that reflects your unique insights
Our findings: 70% of solopreneurs say AI has increased their company’s revenue, with 35% reporting gains of more than 10%.
The result: Revenue growth that doesn’t require proportional increases in workload or finding someone else who thinks just like you.
4—Improving Customer Relationships
With time freed up from more routine tasks, solopreneurs can spend more time, with more knowledge of, their customers
- Faster response times without sacrificing quality
- Better understanding of customer needs through sentiment analysis
- More consistent communication that builds trust
Our findings: 60% of solopreneurs report AI has increased customer retention by at least 5%, and 64% say it has improved customer acquisition.
The result: Higher retention, better referrals, and deeper relationships at scale.
4 AI Experiments You Can Start Today
You don’t need to be an AI expert. You just need to start experimenting.
For many solopreneurs, this experimentation starts where work already happens: inside Zoom Workplace, using built-in AI capabilities like Zoom AI Companion.
Here are four low-risk, high-impact ways to begin, based on the way solopreneurs are actually using AI to scale:
Experiment 1: Recovering Time—Automate Your Meeting Follow-Up
The problem: Meeting follow-up can eat up hours each week: summarizing discussions, tracking action items, and crafting professional follow-up emails that keep everyone aligned.
The prompt: “Summarize this meeting transcript into action items, decisions made, and next steps. Format as a professional email.”
Why it works: This approach transforms 30 minutes of manual note-taking into a structured, actionable summary that improves client communication and accountability.
Zoom’s solution: Zoom AI Companion takes this even further by automatically generating meeting summaries, action items, and follow-up emails in real-time (no prompting required). It turns what used to be 30 minutes of post-meeting work into a few minutes of review, giving you back 15-30 minutes per meeting to focus on what matters most.
Experiment 2: Reducing Costs—Generate Marketing Content From Existing Work
The problem: Creating consistent marketing content is one of the biggest challenges for solopreneurs. It demands constant creativity, time, and often a budget for freelancers or agencies.
The prompt: “Turn this blog post into 5 LinkedIn posts, 10 Twitter threads, and 3 email subject lines.”
Why it works: This approach multiplies your content output without starting from scratch, reducing marketing costs while maintaining a consistent brand presence across multiple channels.
Zoom’s solution: Zoom AI Companion streamlines this process by keeping everything in one integrated workspace. With presentations, documents, meeting recordings, and transcripts all in the same platform, you can instantly repurpose any asset into marketing content. Turn a client presentation into social posts or transform a strategy meeting transcript into email campaigns. Your content library is already built; AI just multiplies its reach without switching tools.
Experiment 3: Driving Revenue—Personalize Customer Outreach at Scale
The problem: Following up with prospects is critical, but personalizing each message at scale is nearly impossible on your own. Generic templates don’t convert, yet customizing every outreach email takes time you don’t have.
The prompt: “Write a personalized email to [prospect name] who works in [industry]. Reference their recent work on [topic]. Keep it under 100 words.”
Why it works: This approach transforms generic outreach into personalized communication that feels authentic and relevant, dramatically increasing response rates and helping you expand into new markets.
Zoom’s solution: Zoom AI Companion can draft personalized follow-up emails based on meeting context, pulling in relevant details from your conversations. It turns what you discussed into tailored outreach that maintains momentum without losing the personal touch, giving you back 10-20 minutes per prospect while keeping communication genuinely relevant.
Experiment 4: Improving Customer Relationships—Analyze Feedback in Seconds
The problem: Understanding what customers really want can require hours of analysis. Reading through dozens of reviews, support tickets, or feedback forms manually takes time away from actually acting on what you learn.
The prompt: “Analyze these 50 customer reviews. Identify top 3 themes, sentiment breakdown, and recommended actions.”
Why it works: This approach can turn hours of manual analysis into minutes spent reviewing organized, actionable insights, helping you understand customer needs faster and respond more strategically. The result is improved retention and more targeted product or service improvements.
Zoom’s solution: Zoom AI Companion can analyze meeting transcripts and customer calls to surface themes, sentiment, and actionable insights across dozens of conversations. Instead of reviewing each interaction individually, you get a synthesized view that reveals patterns and priorities, turning customer feedback into strategic direction without the time-consuming manual analysis.
Pro tip: Start with one experiment. Use it for two weeks. If it works, keep it. If not, try another. The fastest-scaling solopreneurs aren’t doing everything; they’re doing what works for them.
The Bigger Picture: A New Era of Independent Business
This isn’t just about productivity hacks. It’s about a fundamental shift in what’s possible.
For the first time, solopreneurs can compete with companies 10x their size by using AI as a force multiplier, which makes these ventures more than lifestyle side hustles. It elevates them into serious, scalable operations with real potential.
That’s why Zoom created the Zoom Solopreneur 50 (ZSP50), a grant and recognition program designed to celebrate and support the solopreneurs who are redefining what one person can build. We believe the first solopreneur unicorn will emerge soon, powered by AI and the courage to experiment.
Because here’s the truth: AI isn’t making solopreneurs less human. It’s giving them the leverage to be more of what made them start their business in the first place: creative, strategic, and deeply connected to their customers.
Whether you’re just starting to experiment with AI or you’re already seeing results, you’re part of a movement. The first solopreneur unicorn is out there right now, building. Maybe it’s you.
Lisa Scheiring is the Global SMB Advisor and Chief Solo Officer at Zoom, where she works with small business owners and solopreneurs to unlock the full potential of technology in their businesses. She leads the Zoom Solopreneur 50 program and conducts research on the future of independent work.
Photo courtesy Getty Images for Unsplash+