Can AI Provide Passive Income? Week 18 Insights

The start of my first full 12-Week Year has been one of my most productive yet.

Having set my visions and goals during Week 17, I committed fully this week to my new AI YouTube project, focusing all my attention on building out my new faceless channel. The aim is to use this channel to create fully AI-generated videos.

This newsletter is a recap of the progress made, the lessons learned, and what I’m planning next.

Kicking Off My 12-Week Year

After finishing The 12-Week Year, I decided to apply its principles immediately.

Rather than juggle three competing goals, I honed my focus entirely on YouTube for this 12-week sprint. The good news is that on a productivity level, it’s already paying off.

By compressing my timeline and sharpening my objectives, it’s been easier to keep moving forward each day with clear priorities.

Launching My New Faceless Channel

This week was all about laying foundations and executing on my new creative vision.

The first step was creating the storyboard, characters, and setting imagery for my opening videos. Over the week, I generated more than 40 AI-created clips, built narration using ElevenLabs, and edited everything into two fully finished videos. Both videos were posted on Thursday.

It was a demanding process, planning, generating, and editing, but also incredibly rewarding. Each day, I grew more familiar with the characters and the content I’m creating, and it’s exciting to see the potential of what’s possible as my skills with these tools develop.

Learning From The Process

Working exclusively with AI this week taught me a few key lessons:

• The output from AI remains inconsistent. Sometimes it’s shockingly good, other times almost comically bad, especially at the price point of the basic subscriptions. I’m learning to budget time and credits to account for these setbacks.
• Following a clear production flow:
  • Storyboard → AI imagery & clips → Narration → Editing.
  • This method keeps the work manageable.
• Even when results aren’t perfect, the process itself is what builds your expertise.

For the first two videos, I used Runway, but I plan to test Google Veo next with a one-off video in a different theme to compare.

The Bigger Picture

While working on these videos, another thought struck me: there’s a future where AI tool companies partner with creators like us to showcase their technology.

Being seen as a pioneer in the AI creative space is something I’d love to aspire to over time. Building original content with AI, to see how far we can push storytelling through this new medium.

For now, the focus remains on learning, improving, and creating content that’s original and engaging.

Looking Ahead: Week 19 Goals

With two videos published and my first week of the 12-Week Year complete, Week 19 will be about analysing results quickly, collecting feedback, and releasing the next set of videos.

If you’ve been experimenting with AI-driven creative projects, I’d love to hear how you’re finding the process!