I think the important thing with AI is to start at the customer and work backwards to AI. If you are trying to think of cool things you can build with the new AI APIs you are probably doing it wrong.
One thing to remember about having competition is that most customers are not doing a “bake off” and they probably are not even aware of your competitors. If they found you, and you seem reputable, and you do what they need, and the price seems worth it, you can probably close the sale.
Of course the first one is key. That’s the hardest thing about starting from scratch. They have to find you.
As an old business mentor once told me: if you've found a niche where there is no competition, the odds are very good that there's some huge problem around addressing it that you haven't thought of. If nobody else is fishing in the lake, it's probably because there are no fish, the fish are poisonous, or there's a crazy person around who will shoot you for fishing there.
One thing to remember about having competition is that most customers are not doing a “bake off” and they probably are not even aware of your competitors. If they found you, and you seem reputable, and you do what they need, and the price seems worth it, you can probably close the sale.
Of course the first one is key. That’s the hardest thing about starting from scratch. They have to find you.