Free AI Courses from Beginner to Advanced

Elements of AI

University of Helsinki & MinnaLearn

A free online course on what AI is, what is and is not possible with it, and how it affects our lives.

Needs:

No complicated maths or programming required

AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations

Anthropic Academy

The 4D framework - Delegation, Description, Discernment, Diligence - for working with AI effectively, efficiently, ethically and safely. 14 lessons and a quiz.

AI Capabilities and Limitations

Anthropic Academy

What large language models can and cannot do - next-token prediction, knowledge, working memory, steerability and context limits. 13 lessons and a quiz.

AI Fluency for Students

Anthropic Academy

The 4D framework applied to student life: AI for learning, career planning and academic work. 5 lessons and a quiz.

AI Fluency for Small Businesses

Anthropic Academy

The 4D framework applied to everyday business tasks such as research, customer data and operations. 8 lessons and a quiz.

Machine Learning Crash Course

Google

Animated videos, interactive visualisations and exercises on linear and classification models, data, neural networks, embeddings, an intro to LLMs, and production ML.

Intro to Machine Learning

Kaggle

Seven lessons with coding exercises, from how models work and data exploration to model validation, overfitting and random forests. Taught by Dan Becker.

Needs:

Builds on Python

Certificate:

Yes, at no cost

AI for Beginners

Microsoft

A 12-week, 24-lesson curriculum with practical lessons, quizzes and labs, covering tools such as TensorFlow and PyTorch as well as ethics in AI.

Machine Learning for Beginners

Microsoft

A 12-week, 26-lesson curriculum with 52 quizzes on classic machine learning, using mainly Scikit-learn and leaving deep learning to its AI for Beginners course.

AI Foundations Course

freeCodeCamp.org / LunarTech

A video course on Python, machine learning, deep learning and data science: key principles, common algorithms, case studies and projects.

CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python

Harvard University (CS50)

Seven weeks of lectures and hands-on projects on graph search, classification, optimisation, machine learning and large language models, free through OpenCourseWare.

Needs:

CS50x or at least one year of experience with Python

Practical Deep Learning for Coders

fast.ai

Applying deep learning and machine learning to practical problems, with libraries including fastai and Hugging Face. 9 lessons of about 90 minutes each.

Needs:

Some coding experience

Prompt Engineering Tutorial

freeCodeCamp.org / Ania Kubów

Language models, the prompt engineering mindset, zero- and few-shot prompts, hallucinations and text embeddings.

ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers

DeepLearning.AI & OpenAI

Isa Fulford (OpenAI) and Andrew Ng on prompting principles, summarising, inferring, transforming and expanding text, and building a chatbot. 9 video lessons and 7 code examples.

Needs:

A basic understanding of Python

Prompt Engineering Interactive Tutorial

Anthropic

Nine chapters with exercises on prompting Claude, from basic structure and roles to avoiding hallucinations and complex prompts, plus an appendix on chaining, tool use and retrieval.

But What Is a Neural Network?

3Blue1Brown

Chapter 1 of 3Blue1Brown's deep learning series: what a neural network is, explained visually.

Transformers, the Tech Behind LLMs

3Blue1Brown

Chapter 5 of the deep learning series: how a transformer turns text into a prediction of what comes next.

Attention in Transformers, Step by Step

3Blue1Brown

Chapter 6 of the deep learning series: the attention mechanism inside a transformer, worked through visually.

Intro to Large Language Models

Andrej Karpathy

A one-hour general-audience talk on what large language models are and how they are built.

Deep Dive into LLMs like ChatGPT

Andrej Karpathy

A long-form walk through how chatbots such as ChatGPT are built, from pre-training data to the assistant.

LLM Course

Hugging Face

Large language models and NLP using the Hugging Face libraries and Hub, through fine-tuning, datasets and building reasoning models.

Needs:

A good knowledge of Python

Neural Networks: Zero to Hero

Andrej Karpathy

Eight lectures building neural networks in code, from backpropagation (micrograd) to a GPT and its tokenizer.

Needs:

Python and intro-level maths

Generative AI for Beginners

Microsoft

21 lessons on building generative AI applications, each either a concept lesson or a build lesson with Python and TypeScript code.

GenAI Essentials

freeCodeCamp.org / Andrew Brown

A video course on prompting, deploying and tuning models, retrieval-augmented generation and agents.

Claude Platform 101

Anthropic Academy

Building on the Claude Platform from the ground up, for people who have made a few API calls or only used Claude in a chat window. 13 lessons and a quiz.

Building with the Claude API

Anthropic Academy

The Claude API from basic use to agents: prompting, tool use, RAG, MCP and production patterns. 67 lessons and 8 quizzes.

Needs:

Proficiency in Python, basic JSON, and an Anthropic API key

AI Agents for Beginners

Microsoft

18 lessons: agent design patterns, tool use, agentic RAG, multi-agent systems, MCP and A2A, memory, security and deployment.

Building Effective Human-Agent Teams

Anthropic Academy

Moving from single-player to multiplayer AI, and how to prepare a team for the shift. 5 lessons and a quiz; in beta.

AI Agents Course

Hugging Face

AI agents in theory and practice, using smolagents, LlamaIndex and LangGraph, with challenges that compare your agents with other students'.

Certificate:

Certificate of completion

Model Context Protocol (MCP) Course

Hugging Face

Understanding, using and building MCP applications, built in partnership with Anthropic.

Needs:

Basic AI and LLM concepts, and familiarity with software development

Certificate:

Certificate of completion

Introduction to Model Context Protocol

Anthropic Academy

Build MCP servers and clients from scratch with the Python SDK, covering tools, resources and prompts. 10 lessons and a quiz.

Needs:

Basic Python, async/await, and familiarity with APIs

Introduction to Agent Skills

Anthropic Academy

Build, configure and share skills in Claude Code - reusable markdown instructions Claude applies to matching tasks. 6 lessons.

Introduction to Subagents

Anthropic Academy

Splitting complex tasks across parallel Claude subagents and orchestrating them. 4 lessons.

Claude 101

Anthropic Academy

Using Claude for everyday work: prompting, projects, artifacts, skills and connected tools. 13 lessons and a quiz.

Claude Code 101

Anthropic Academy

What Claude Code is, how its agentic loop, context and permissions work, the Explore, Plan, Code, Commit workflow, and customising it with CLAUDE.md, subagents, skills, MCP servers and hooks. 12 lessons.

Claude Code in Action

Anthropic Academy

Running long, hands-off Claude Code sessions: steering, configuring, automating and verifying. 9 lessons and a quiz.

Needs:

You already use Claude Code; basic Git and command line