The idea of building an online business used to feel complicated. You needed technical skills, money to invest, and a lot of time to learn. In 2026, that barrier is much lower. Artificial intelligence has quietly changed how people start and grow online businesses. What once required a team can now be done by one person with the right tools and mindset. Many beginners are starting with simple AI-powered services. Some offer content writing, basic design, or video editing using AI tools. They do not pretend to be experts at everything. Instead, they focus on solving one small problem for businesses. For example, helping small shops create social media posts, or helping local service providers write website content. AI helps speed up the work, but the human still guides the process and adds quality control. Others are building micro-agencies. These are small online teams, sometimes even one person, that use AI to manage multiple clients. With automation tools, it is possible to schedul...
In 2016, Instagram was already crowded with models, influencers, and carefully edited lives. Everyone was chasing authenticity, yet everything looked staged. Then, quietly, a new account appeared. A young girl with freckles, glossy lips, and an effortless sense of style. Her name was Miquela Sousa , later known simply as Lil Miquela . She posted like everyone else. Selfies. Fashion shots. Casual captions. Nothing about her screamed “fake.” And that was the point. What people didn’t know at least not at first was that Lil Miquela wasn’t human at all. She was a digital creation. A virtual character. A calculated experiment that would go on to reshape how the internet understands influence, identity, and authenticity itself. This is the full story of how it started, how it grew, what technology powered it, and why Lil Miquela matters far beyond Instagram. The Beginning: A Digital Experiment Disguised as a Person Lil Miquela was created by a Los Angeles–based startup called Brud , f...