Not long ago, a company generating millions of dollars in revenue was expected to have a large team, an office, and dozens of employees. Today, that is no longer necessarily the case.
According to Stripe data, the number of solo entrepreneurs generating more than $1 million in annual revenue doubled between 2023 and 2025. The number generating more than $10 million nearly tripled. One of the biggest forces behind this shift is artificial intelligence.
Today, AI can act as a programmer, marketer, customer support manager, analyst, or virtual assistant for an entrepreneur. For example, WSJ profiled entrepreneur Ben Broca, who is using AI tools to run nearly all of his company’s operations by himself. His service has around 10,000 customers, and the company expects to reach $10 million in annual revenue in 2026 — without a traditional team of employees. AI helps him respond to emails, write and debug code, support customers, onboard new subscribers, and manage refunds.
In the past, launching a new product often required hiring developers, designers, marketers, and sales specialists. Today, an entrepreneur can handle a large part of these functions independently with the help of several AI tools.
The shift is particularly visible in technology businesses. According to data analyzed by the Bank of America Institute based on U.S. Census data, new business applications in the information sector showed the strongest growth, increasing by nearly 45% year over year. At the same time, the share of businesses planning to hire employees has declined. In other words, more businesses are being created, but not all of them are starting with large teams.
The “More employees = Bigger company” model is changing
A successful company may no longer need hundreds of employees. With AI, a small team can serve a large number of customers. In some businesses, a single founder can handle everything from product development and marketing to sales and customer support. Researchers at Harvard Business School studied 50,000 startups and found that AI-focused startups tend to operate with around 25% fewer employees on average.
But this doesn’t mean AI does everything
The stories of one-person companies are impressive, but AI does not solve every business problem. One of the examples highlighted by the WSJ illustrates this well. Claire Vo initially used AI for product development, marketing, sales, and customer service. However, technology alone was not enough. Industry experience, trust, and an existing professional network also played an important role.
At the same time, as AI makes it easier to build a business, competition becomes tougher. A product created by one entrepreneur can potentially be replicated quickly by another using similar AI tools. That means the long-term advantage will not simply come from using AI. It will come from combining AI with a unique product, strong brand, customer base, and domain expertise.
Stripe’s figures do not represent the total number of million-dollar solo businesses across the entire economy. They are based on businesses using Stripe’s platform. Still, the numbers point to a broader shift: building a high-revenue business with a very small team is becoming increasingly possible.
AI is lowering the barriers to entrepreneurship, accelerating the process of launching a business, and significantly expanding what one person can accomplish. The result could be a new generation of companies that achieve significant scale without following the traditional path of rapidly building large teams.
