From higher flexibility to a way of possession and the hope of monetary acquire, solopreneurship seems like the brand new American dream. Nevertheless, there’s a hidden value to that dream that has nothing to do with the endless hustle that comes with being each a enterprise proprietor and that enterprise’s sole worker. It’s the plain value to the planet.
In 2025, about 41 million businesses within the U.S. have been run by a sole particular person who’s each its proprietor and solely worker. As AI permits for solopreneurs to automate a rising variety of duties, the expertise is enabling small companies—from gigs like content material creation to occasion planner and even area of interest work like canine grooming or jewellery making, and extra—to utterly thrive with a workforce of just one. Subsequently, whereas a person with an concept could have wanted a whole workforce to show that concept into actual money movement prior to now, it’s now fully possible (and massively popular) to take action with the assistance of AI.
That’s true for solopreneur Dan Mazei, who was previously communications and marketing chief for organizations like Reebok, Tinder, Activision Blizzard, and Ford, and a long-time company chief for main shoppers like Nintendo and Unilever. Now, Mazei runs his personal enterprise because the founder and principal of All Tangled Roots, a advertising and marketing consultancy for manufacturers, with the assistance of AI. Mazei tells Quick Firm that AI is essential to his enterprise mannequin, as it could “degree the taking part in discipline for a solo service supplier towards a sea of closely staffed businesses” which can be doing the identical type of work.
That very same is true for Samantha Levitin, a solopreneur and founding father of Levitin Collective, a boutique PR agency working throughout way of life, wellness, hospitality, and client manufacturers, in NYC. (She’s also a new mom to a 15-month-old child.) Levitin says that AI permits her to handle the dreaded psychological load that comes with working a enterprise whereas being a mother or father. “Beginning my very own agency meant understanding I’d be doing every little thing myself, and AI helped fill gaps that might usually require a small workforce, which I used to be used to,” Levitin says.
The solopreneur provides that she started constructing her enterprise whereas on maternity go away, and, in the end, it’s given her each “flexibility and steadiness.” She says, “I deliberately designed the agency to be small . . . and AI offers me again time and psychological house so I can deal with what issues most in my discipline: artistic considering, relationship constructing, and hands-on consumer work.”
Nonetheless, we are able to’t discuss AI’s unbelievable energy to show goals into actuality with out speaking about the price. Whereas there are a lot of challenges which will come from working a enterprise made up of 1—reminiscent of working across the clock, or the numerous monetary dangers—there are additionally clear environmental prices that are largely being ignored.
In line with a 2024 MIT report on the environmental impact of AI, the power calls for that come from each coaching and utilizing AI are huge and rising on a regular basis. In North America, electrical energy necessities elevated from 2,688 megawatts on the finish of 2022 to five,341 megawatts by the next yr, principally because of the rising demand for generative AI. And consultants fear we merely aren’t involved sufficient about that stark actuality.
Noman Bashir, lead creator of the environmental influence paper, and a Computing and Local weather Affect Fellow at MIT Local weather and Sustainability Consortium (MCSC) and a postdoc within the Pc Science and Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), says, per MIT, that the influence is huge however “on a regular basis consumer doesn’t suppose an excessive amount of about that.” In line with Bashir, the reason being two-fold. “The benefit of use of generative AI interfaces and the lack of expertise in regards to the environmental impacts of my actions signifies that, as a consumer, I don’t have a lot incentive to chop again on my use of generative AI,” Bashir explains.
Jonathan Schaeffer, an AI researcher and CEO of a startup referred to as Form, agrees. Schaefer tells Quick Firm that “not sufficient consideration is being paid to the hidden environmental prices” of the widespread expertise. “AI instruments can considerably improve the power consumption concerned, notably from the huge information facilities required to help cloud-based AI methods,” the CEO explains. “These information facilities, housing 1000’s of servers working AI fashions, eat giant quantities of electrical energy, a lot of which remains to be sourced from nonrenewable assets, contributing considerably to carbon emissions.”
Schaefer provides that the expertise additionally comes with a hidden monetary value that most individuals don’t notice they might find yourself paying for themselves. “In lots of jurisdictions, the capability to feed these information facilities contributes to a big improve within the value of electrical energy, a price that’s usually handed on to shoppers.”
Furthermore, the CEO says that information facilities require greater than power to function, however “in addition they want cooling methods to stop overheating” which might improve their environmental footprint additional. In line with Bloomberg, which analyzed information from DC Byte, electrical energy prices in areas positioned close to “vital information middle exercise” rose 267% over a month when in comparison with information from 5 years earlier.
Kevin Gast, cofounder and CEO of VVater, a next-generation water remedy firm devoted to utilizing superior applied sciences to handle international water challenges, is usually involved with the tempo at which AI is transferring. “Once you multiply tens of millions of each day AI interactions throughout companies worldwide, you’re taking a look at a big environmental load that most individuals merely aren’t conscious of,” Gast tells Quick Firm. “Knowledge facilities are already utilizing billions of gallons (of water) yearly, and as AI turns into extra embedded in on a regular basis enterprise operations, that demand is simply accelerating. We’re seeing elevated stress on freshwater assets in sure areas, particularly the place amenities overlap with areas already managing water.” In line with a 2025 global study from Arizona State University, freshwater assets have been drying up since 2002 at an unprecedented charge.
On the intense facet, Gast says options are being developed virtually as shortly. “We’re seeing severe funding in closed-loop water recycling methods, superior remedy applied sciences, and strategic facility placement in areas with higher water availability and pure cooling climates.” He continues, “The problem now could be accelerating that progress to maintain tempo with how shortly AI is being adopted throughout each sector.”
Whereas an increasing number of people are definitely turning to AI to run their companies, that doesn’t imply they aren’t all completely at the hours of darkness about its influence. Mazei says that, on a human degree, he’s cautious of huge tech’s “overreach”, reminiscent of “probably integrating another person’s code into our most private selections.” Nonetheless, the solopreneur credit the expertise with serving to him “select an expert path” that he “didn’t imagine was viable just some brief years in the past.”
As the price of dwelling continues to soar, and even proficient and pushed professionals battle to seek out well-paying jobs, solopreneurship could discover that placing apart their concern for the setting is a small value to pay for making good on the American dream that feels in any other case arduous to return by.
