2025 is coming to a close, and I’m here in the quiet house, kids asleep, tea cooling beside me, feeling quietly surprised by how the year unfolded. I turned 40 this year. I’m a full-time stay-at-home mom to four kids (my youngest just turned 4). In the late evenings, after bedtime stories and the usual mom tasks, I played with AI tools, mostly for fun at first since 2022, then sharing workflows and creations here and on X. Somehow, that play turned into gentle five-figure side income and opportunities I never expected in 2025 . This isn’t about showing off.
It’s about how AI can open creative doors for anyone willing to experiment, and how deeply grateful I am that it did for me.
Most of these opportunities found me in 2025. People saw workflows or pieces I shared and reached out to collaborate.
Became an official ambassador for Adobe, LTX Studio, and Hailuo AI
Helped several AI brands with product launches and consultation
Delivered paid work including album covers, short music pieces, social media visuals, landing page art, custom AI art, product photos, 3D assets for AR projects, and AI videos for launches and storytelling
Worked with an LA-based production house on AI-driven drama projects (still under NDA)
Appeared on the Bolt’s podcast with CEO Eric, shared my vibe code story at Netlify’s townhall, and pitched newmom.help on This Week in Startups with Jason Calacanis
All of this happened in the late evenings after the kids were down, just the usual wait until the house is quiet.
Since 2022, I’ve spent thousands of hours experimenting, refining prompts, editing outputs, and designing repeatable workflows. (and thousands of purple AI art 💜😉)I’ve learned how to direct AI tools to produce consistent, client-ready results, whether it’s cinematic video, cohesive visuals, or polished audio. That expertise, knowing how to guide the models, fix imperfections, and shape raw outputs into something professional, is what turned late-night experiments into real projects and income. AI is an incredible amplifier, but it still needs a human who understands how to steer it.
Thank you to the brands that named me an ambassador and welcomed me into their Creative Partner programs.
Thank you to every client, collaborator, and sponsor who believed in my work.
And the biggest thank you to you 🫵, the readers and subscribers here on PicAisso. I can’t do any of this without your support. 💜Knowing that this little newsletter is now being read in 39 states across the US and in 92 countries around the world still feels unreal to me. Your likes, comments, shares, replies and quiet opens are what opened almost every door. This space feels like a warm, supportive corner of the internet because of you.
These are the ones I relied on (and shared with you) most this year:
LTX Studio – storyboarding, shot planning, character consistency, lip-sync, camera moves, all in one place. It’s fun, intuitive, and honestly spoils me for everything else.
Hailuo AI – unmatched character consistency and cinematic video; Midjourney-grade images, and it absolutely shines in dynamic dancing and high-energy action scenes.
Adobe Firefly + Adobe Express – my trusted foundation for professional results: Firefly for clean, ethical image generation with excellent style matching and inpainting; Express for lightning-fast social templates, removals, and polished client visuals that feel premium in minutes.
Recraft – an absolute standout for creating clean, scalable vector graphics, crisp illustrations, and smart redesigns that look instantly professional no matter the style. I love how fast and intuitive it is, perfect for everything from detailed icons and patterns to full editorial layouts and branding visuals that clients rave about.
Lovart – the groundbreaking world’s first AI design agent that acts like a full creative team, taking a single prompt and autonomously planning, orchestrating multiple models, and delivering complete campaigns across images, videos, branding, and more on an infinite collaborative canvas. It feels like having an intelligent creative director by your side. (I was their beta tester and they used 3 of my design case study on their website when they were first launch!)
Ideogram – the most reliable tool for generating images with perfect, readable text integration and clean typography that actually looks designed, not AI-glitched. It’s my go-to whenever a project needs bold posters, quotes, or any visual where words are as important as the art, consistently crisp and professional every time
Pika – incredibly fun and fast for lip-sync videos, character animation, and bringing still images to life with surprisingly realistic motion and expression.
Genmo – a delightfully playful open-source powerhouse for text-to-video and image-to-video generation, with Mochi 1 delivering surprisingly fluid motion, realistic physics, and creative animations that feel experimental yet polished.
Decart – lightning-fast, real-time image and video generation with ultra-low latency, perfect for interactive and dynamic projects that need instant responsiveness. It impresses with high-quality outputs optimized for speed
Sync – the most natural, realistic mouth movements for any video, live-action, animated, or AI-generated, syncing perfectly to new audio or text in real-time, even up to 4K.
HeyGen – best AI Avatar generator! professional avatar videos with natural lip-sync, gestures, and multilingual voice cloning that feels almost indistinguishable from real humans.
Reve – a stunning new image generator (Reve Image 1.0) that launched in 2025 with incredible prompt adherence, beautiful aesthetics, flawless typography, and hands-down the best image editing capabilities I’ve used this year.
Viggle – the standout tool for precise character puppeteering and animation control
Deemos – a pioneering tool for generating production-ready 3D models from text or images, with clean meshes, PBR materials, and impressive detail that feels closest to professional pipelines among AI options. They are offering unlimited and free AI video generation too! Go and try it.
Leonardo – a remarkable text to image and text to video tool that delivers long-form, consistent clips with smooth motion, excellent camera control, and high production value that feels like real filmmaking. I’ve been using it faithfully since 2022 when it was still early and rough, watching it evolve into one of the most reliable image and video generators has been incredibly rewarding.
Vidu – text-to-video and image-to-video generator delivering cinematic 1080p clips with exceptional multi-reference consistency, realistic physic
Freebeat AI – a clever one-click AI music video generator that transforms any song (from Spotify, YouTube, or upload) into beat-synced lyric videos, dance clips, or full cinematic music videos with smart visuals and effects.
Vizcom – turns rough sketches or concepts into stunning, photorealistic industrial designs, product renderings, and technical visuals with incredible speed and precision. I made a series of the 3D render with this tool on Instagram!
Vidnoz – a fast, user-friendly AI avatar video platform that creates professional talking-head videos with natural lip-sync, gestures, and hundreds of realistic avatars in multiple languages. You can clone your voice for free here.
Kling – this tool delivers jaw-dropping dynamic motion, realistic physics, and high-energy action with cinematic quality that often feels like Hollywood-level effects.
Midjourney – the timeless king of pure artistic exploration, delivering breathtaking, painterly images with unmatched creativity, style diversity, and that signature “wow” factor that still stops me in my tracks.
Grok – my constant companion for ideation, prompt crafting, and rapid brainstorming; the fastest AI for generating Midjourney level images and videos with lightning speed and stunning quality that never fails to impress.
I reach for it every single day instead of ChatGPT, it’s smarter, quicker.ElevenLabs – the gold standard for ultra-natural voice synthesis, delivering expressive, emotional speech with perfect intonation, accents, and voice cloning that feels eerily human, even in long-form narration or multilingual projects. We can now create images and videos in ElevenLabs. And assemble everything in the Studio feature. I just made this video with it.👇
I’ll keep sharing honest workflows and tips here, no hype, just what works in real projects.
I believe the AI creative space is shifting from chaotic experimentation to calm craftsmanship. Tools will become faster, more consistent, and far more intuitive. We’ll spend less time wrestling with models and more time expressing personal vision. Multi-modal consistency (matching style across images, video, audio, and 3D) will feel natural, not miraculous.
Most exciting: everyday creators, parents, hobbyists, side-hustlers, will routinely produce work that feels polished and professional. 2026 will be the year AI creativity feels truly personal and accessible.
My own quiet goal is to grow this gentle side income even further, still from home, still fitting around family life. A few exciting projects are already in motion, and you’ll hear about them here first.
If you’ve been curious about AI tools but haven’t jumped in yet, 2026 feels like the kindest year to start.
One small experiment at a time.
Here’s to a softer, braver, more creative year ahead—together.
I’d truly love to connect with you more in this little AI creative corner we’ve built together. 💜
If you’ve been experimenting with any of the tools I shared (or discovered new favorites of your own), I’d be so happy to hear about your go-to workflows, the prompts that surprised you, or the late-night or morning creations you’re proud of, drop them in the comments or reply anytime.
I’m also genuinely curious: what would you like me to share more of in 2026?
Step-by-step beginner guides for specific tools?
In-depth breakdowns of client-ready workflows (video, branding, music visuals, etc.)?
Prompt-crafting tips and consistency tricks?
How I combine multiple tools for polished results?
Balancing AI creative side projects with real-life chaos?
Something else entirely in the AI creativity space?
Your ideas and feedback always shape what I write next, I read every comment and reply. THANK YOU! Happy 2026. 🥂
With warmth and gratitude,
Zeng 💜
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