Any success with cold emailing these days?

I have an academic background, and in 2009 I sent a number of cold emails to academics offering my services as a copyeditor/proofreader of articles for publication in journals. In those days, I got quite a few replies and articles to work on, people were satisfied with my work, recommended me to others and after a year or two, I was getting enough work for a full-time job. I also did dissertations, project proposals and any other texts the academics sent me. This was in a small European country, where I knew the language, by the way. I then had enough work until a few years ago, when AI arrived on the scene. Work then gradually decreased and a couple of years ago, I sent out some cold emails like before to try to make up for the loss. No luck at all, presumably partly because there’s much more spam and scamming now than there was in 2009. So now, with my income at about 50-60% of my best year, I’m thinking of more seriously going in for cold emailing and researching the best ways to do it. Has anybody had any success with cold emailing these days, or is it extremely difficult?