12 courses
Free training worth your evening.
Most free AI courses are adverts with a certificate at the end. These are the ones that teach you something. 9 are free the whole way through, and where money appears later we say so on the card.
Good for anyone
- FreeBeginner
Elements of AI
University of Helsinki and MinnaLearn
Anyone who wants to understand what AI actually is before touching a tool.
A plain-language grounding in what these systems can and cannot do, with no maths and no programming.
Why this one. It is the calmest introduction on this list, and it explains the ideas rather than selling you software. Over two million people have taken it.
- FreeBeginner to intermediateAbout 2 to 3 hours for the relevant tracks
OpenAI Academy
OpenAI
Anyone who has been handed a ChatGPT licence and told to use it.
Self-paced tracks from AI foundations through applying it to recurring work and directing agents.
Why this one. The most practical all-round starting point, and it comes from the company that makes the tool most readers were given.
- FreeBeginner to intermediate
AI Summer Adventure
Nufar Gaspar, with The AI Daily Brief and Superintelligent
People who learn by building rather than by watching, and who want a structure to follow.
Twenty-three hands-on stations across three tiers, from everyday tools up to running agents.
Why this one. The only entry here built as a series of things you make. Better than a lecture if you already know the theory and cannot get started.
- FreeIntermediate to advancedTwelve weeks
AI for Beginners
Microsoft
Readers who want to know how the technology works underneath, not only how to use it.
Twenty-four lessons over twelve weeks covering neural networks, computer vision, language models and AI ethics.
Why this one. Open source under an MIT licence, translated into fifty languages, and it will still be there next year. It is the technical grounding the other entries deliberately skip.
- FreeAdvanced
Practical Deep Learning for Coders
fast.ai
People on your team who can already code and want to build models rather than use them.
A working path from a first model to deployment, taught top-down with real problems first.
Why this one. Send this to the engineer who asks what to read. It needs about a year of coding and no advanced maths.
- Free to startBeginnerAbout 7 hours
AI Prompting for Everyone
DeepLearning.AI
Non-technical people who already use AI daily and want to be markedly better at it.
Seven hours on prompting as a working skill, taught by Andrew Ng, with no coding at any point.
Why this one. The clearest teaching of prompting as a craft rather than a list of tricks. Watch the videos and skip the paid extras unless you want the certificate.
Where it costs. The videos are free. Labs, quizzes and the certificate need a Pro membership at $25 a month, billed annually.
- Free to startIntermediate to advanced1 hour 40 minutes
ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers
DeepLearning.AI
Whoever on your team is going to wire AI into something you already run.
An hour and forty minutes on the patterns that hold up when a prompt is called by software rather than a person.
Why this one. The shortest bridge from using AI to building with it. Needs basic Python.
Where it costs. Free access is described as being for a limited time during the platform beta, so check the price before you plan around it.
- Free to startBeginner to intermediate
Learn Prompting
Learn Prompting
People who want a reference to return to rather than a course to finish.
A structured library of prompting techniques, plus a free seven-day course on where prompts break.
Why this one. Use it as a manual. It is the best organised reference of the techniques, and the security material is genuinely unusual.
Where it costs. The reference material and a seven-day course are free. The longer specialisations are paid.
Built for your team
Finance
- FreeBeginner to intermediate
AI for Finance and Accounting
FreeAcademy.ai
Finance and accounting teams, including analysts and bookkeepers, with no technical background.
Reading financial statements, drafting board reports, forecasting and automating the repetitive parts, with prompts you adapt to your own numbers.
Why this one. Every module is a concrete task rather than a demonstration, and it uses your reports as the material.
HR
- FreeBeginner60 minutes
Free AI HR Course
Johannes Sundlo
HR, recruiting and People Ops teams who have opened ChatGPT and not yet built it into the work.
Job ads, screening support, onboarding and a prompt library you can reuse the same day, plus where to keep a human in the loop.
Why this one. An hour, built by someone who does the job, and it ends with something you can use rather than a certificate you file.
Legal
- FreeBeginner to intermediate
AI for Legal Professionals
FreeAcademy.ai
In-house counsel, private practice lawyers and paralegals with no AI experience.
Contract drafting and review, research, document summarising and case prep, with full modules on ethics and disclosure duties.
Why this one. It spends real time on confidentiality and on when you have to tell someone AI was involved, which most courses skip.
Marketing
- FreeBeginner to intermediate2 hours 49 minutes
AI for Marketing
HubSpot Academy
Marketing teams who want AI in the campaign work rather than in the strategy deck.
Writing and judging prompts, personalisation, and putting AI into reporting and analytics.
Why this one. Under three hours, marketing-native throughout, and it teaches you to assess the output rather than trust it.
Still looking for Product, Customer Support and Sales. Everything we found was a vendor demo in disguise. Start with the courses above — they work for any team.