A UK-based Indian entrepreneur has taken up an unusual side hustle—training artificial intelligence models—and is earning about ₹18,000 an hour, despite already running a successful company. Speaking to CNBC Make It, Utkarsh Amitabh said the freelance role appealed more to his intellectual curiosity than to financial need.
Side hustle driven by curiosity
Amitabh, 34, began working with data-labeling startup micro1 in January 2025. He said he was not looking for another job, but found the work a natural extension of his long-standing interest in artificial intelligence and its impact on work and achievement.
The founder and CEO of global mentorship platform Network Capital, Amitabh holds a mechanical engineering degree from Delhi College of Engineering and a master’s in moral philosophy from University of Oxford. He also spent six years at Microsoft, focusing on cloud and AI partnerships.
How the work happens
Amitabh typically works around three-and-a-half hours each night, often after putting his one-year-old daughter to bed. His tasks involve stress-testing enterprise AI models with complex business problems, identifying where systems get confused, and rewriting prompts so models can learn more accurately.
“It requires immense attention to detail,” he told CNBC Make It. “The machine learns, but so do you. That’s what makes it energising.”
Since January, Amitabh has reportedly earned nearly ₹2.6 crore, including completion bonuses. While he acknowledges the pay is attractive, he insists money was not the primary motivation. “Alignment with my interests mattered more,” he said, adding that fair compensation remains a core value.
Growing demand for human expertise
Founded in 2022, micro1 has built a network of more than two million experts who help refine AI systems for major labs and Fortune 100 companies. Valued at around $500 million, the company says such specialists are critical as AI models move beyond publicly available data and require higher-quality human input.
Amitabh’s experience highlights a broader trend: even as AI automates tasks, skilled human judgment remains central—creating new, high-paying opportunities for professionals willing to work at the intersection of technology and insight.