Free AI Courses for Beginners
12 free courses and videos, grouped by the level each provider gives, with the prerequisites and certificates their pages state.
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the field of making computers do tasks that normally need human thinking - recognising images, understanding language, making predictions. Most of today's AI is machine learning: instead of being given rules, a program learns patterns from examples.
The courses below start from zero. Some need no programming at all and explain what AI is and how to use AI tools well; others teach you to build simple machine-learning models in Python. Each card says what the course page lists as needed before you start.
Who these courses are for
Anyone new to AI. Courses marked "no programming required" need no coding; the rest list the coding they expect.
Beginner courses (10)
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
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.
Intermediate courses (2)
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
View and sign-up counts are the providers’ own figures, read 18 October 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Can I learn AI for free?+
Yes. Every course on this page is free to take, from providers including the University of Helsinki, Google, Microsoft, Kaggle, Harvard's CS50, fast.ai and Anthropic.
Do I need to know how to code to learn AI?+
Not to start. Elements of AI states that no complicated maths or programming is required, and Anthropic's AI Fluency courses teach how to work with AI tools without code. Courses that build models, such as Kaggle's Intro to Machine Learning or CS50's Introduction to AI, expect Python.
Which free AI courses give a certificate?+
Kaggle's Intro to Machine Learning lists a certificate at no cost. Hugging Face's Agents and MCP courses, on the AI agents page, also give a certificate of completion. Each card shows a certificate only where the course page offers one.
How long does it take to learn the basics of AI?+
It depends on the course. Kaggle estimates about 3 hours for Intro to Machine Learning, Anthropic's AI Fluency foundations course lists 4 hours, and Microsoft's AI for Beginners curriculum is organised as 12 weeks of lessons.