How to Build an AI Business with a Membership Site (With Case Studies)

AI is so diverse that it’s hard to create a one-size-fits-all tutorial on building an AI business with a membership site. Probably you have the expertise to share or an AI product to sell? Do you want to simply enable protected discussions with the ability to test your AI solution? A membership solution can help you with any.

While theory is valuable, proven examples offer a more practical approach. In this article on how to build an AI business with a membership site, we’re looking at real AI-powered membership businesses, dissecting their strategies to see if they can help you receive your own members.

Examples of Using a Membership Site for an AI Business

Here are a few examples of how AI businesses can use a membership approach for client growth.

• AI-powered learning platform – integrate your AI product with the website, create sandboxes with password-protected user areas, create case studies, and enable members to achieve different results with your AI product.
• Online courses about AI – if you can teach how to apply AI tools in various areas of personal life or business, it’s the best solution to build a paid course within your membership.
• Membership discussion forums –  collect ideas and feedback from members that you need to build your AI startup using a membership area.
• Member access to a beta version of an AI product – give members early access to test and provide feedback on AI features or beta products before the actual release.
• AI functionality as premium features – provide extra helpful features related to your membership site with AI-boosted functionality.
• Premium tier for exclusive customer support – build a membership customer support area employing AI tools.

Now, let’s take a look at real examples of AI businesses to get the idea of how the following membership sites receive clients.

Case Study 1. Innovating with AI [Incubator]

An interesting fact about this case study is that this is a one-man project. Featured in TechCrunch, Wired, and Entrepreneur, the Innovating with AI platform by Rob Howard is a great example of how to educate people to launch their “good, fast, and cheap” AI idea in 30 days. The AI Incubator is a high-impact AI innovation program that teaches people the principles of AI and actionable tips for employing them.

As an AI and tech coach, he provides live training, private mentorships, Slack chats, regular emails, and other ways to meet and educate people. This is already a sort of a paid membership community but distributed across different channels. 

In essence, it’s a well-structured course about AI that anyone can watch within 2 or 4 weeks, accessible in various ways. Customers can even view details of what they get with different membership pricing plans.

With the right membership management software or course builder, you can easily replicate this scenario and even centralize all the course data, manage members, and launch lessons at your own pace.

Case Study 2. Runway AI research company

The Runway AI research company allows customers to use various AI tools to boost their creativity. The company provides membership plans that grant access to a library of pre-trained AI models for on-demand creative tasks – image generation, video editing, and 3D design. 

The tools are provided within the in-house created member accounts, where everyone gets tools they paid for. Free trials are available. 

Case Study 3. AI Accelerator Institute

This is an example of a well-maintained membership site with member-only content, member-only events, member-only networks, and more perks. Everyone can unlock the desired level of AI-centered content and events via their membership site, which works as a paid subscription.

They advertise their AI membership program as an all-in-one toolkit for AI career growth, offering multiple expert AI insights and tools that not only simplify day-to-day tasks but also enhance business projects. What helps them make it more attractive is the mention of popular brands that provide their insights within the member-only content – experts from renowned companies such as NVIDIA, Amazon, and Adobe.

The membership included materials like real-world insights, templates and frameworks, and community discussions.

Example with WordPress

How to build an AI business with a membership site on WordPress? As creators of the ARMember plugin, a full-scale membership system plugin, we know how to build powerful sites with many features for course building, affiliate marketing, and intelligent content dripping options within your own membership website.

The most used case is building educational AI websites through the membership access, like so:

1. Pick a membership site oriented WordPress theme: browse a collection of top membership WP themes.
2. Install and activate the ARMember membership plugin.
3. Create your membership plans (free/paid).
4. Add payment options (subscription, one-time).
5. Add content using WordPress content building tools and select its protection level. These can be your AI templates, cheat sheets, videos, text content, and probably even AI plugins for WordPress if you have any.
6. Create membership subscription pages on your website.

That’s pretty much it! You can scale and improve your membership site along the way with numerous membership site tools and addons.

We’ve covered various tutorials before on how to create membership sites with WordPress:

• How to Build a Membership Website with WordPress?
• How to Start Membership Support Groups with WordPress

To Conclude: How to Build an AI Business with a Membership Site?

Using membership solutions for your AI business can be a central or supporting part of your project. At the moment, it seems that the most clear and profitable way is to create online resources about AI and sell them to paying members, opening up opportunities for rewards, decisions, member interaction, affiliates, and more.

• Consider a membership site as an extra platform where you can meet your customers or as central to your membership if you have AI products or services to offer.
• There are online learning platforms that use existing AI for personalized learning journeys.
• WordPress is one of the most powerful content management systems that offers vast choices of membership designs and membership plugins.
• Higher membership tiers might offer more credits for processing or access to exclusive model AI training features.
• Popular AI tools used by memberships include smart AI-powered member matching when you can connect users with others who share similar interests or goals.