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Free AI courses where you build something real

Short, in-depth AI courses for people who don’t code

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Start here · the beginner course you can take today

AI for beginners: start here

What AI chat tools are, what they are good and bad at, and your first useful conversation.

Level
Beginner
Time
5 lessons, about 45 minutes in total
Cost
Free.

Anyone who’s never used an AI tool, or tried once and gave up.

See the course and its 5 lessons
Course cover: a printed week of meals and a shopping list, with a hand sketching beside it and torn blue paper
Course cover. The meal plan is the real one from lesson 5; the household is made up.

Here’s what lesson 3 made

We ran the exact prompt from lesson 3 for a made-up home bakery. This is the page that came back, unedited, opened from a file on our computer. Your page will be different, because your brief is.

  1. Welcome
  2. What I bake: three items
  3. How ordering works: three steps
  4. Opening hours
  5. Contact

A learner on Claude’s Free plan in the browser may get a different model, so their page will differ. The example business is fictional.

The finished Brook Lane Bakes one-page website at laptop width: welcome, What I bake (three cards), How ordering works (three numbered steps), Opening hours (Friday and Saturday, 8am to 1pm, collection only) and Get in touch.
Brook Lane Bakes, as Claude made it from the lesson 3 prompt. A fictional example business.

How it works

  1. Step 1: Pick a course

    Each one is 3 to 6 short lessons and ends with something you made. New to AI? Start with “AI for beginners”.

  2. Step 2: Follow the real steps

    Each step says exactly what to do, gives you the exact prompt where there is one, and tells you what you should see next. No account needed to read.

  3. Step 3: Save your progress if you like

    Sign in with an email link to tick off lessons, earn module and course badges and keep a streak. It’s optional.

  4. Step 4: Get your certificate of completion

    Finish every lesson and get a certificate with its own verification link, ready to add to LinkedIn.

  • Free. No paywall, no trial, no card.
  • Every lesson is readable without an account. Just open it and start.
  • Sign in with a link sent to your email, only to save your progress. No passwords.
  • Finish a course and get a certificate of completion with its own verification link, ready to add to LinkedIn.
  • Every course ends with something you made, not a quiz score.

All courses

Three courses are written and ready. The others are planned, so their lesson counts and times are the planned outline, not a finished course.

Start here

New to AI? Begin with these two.

Build something

Courses that end with a thing you made.

Work smarter

Planned. Until they are written, start with the website course.

  • AI automation with no codeConnect the apps you already use so the routine admin happens on its own, with AI where it helps.Improver · Planned outline: 5 lessons, about 55 minutesPlanned
  • AI for your small businessFind the jobs in your business that AI can take on first, and the ones it shouldn’t touch.Beginner · Planned outline: 4 lessons, about 40 minutesPlanned
  • AI for marketingUse AI for briefs, first drafts and ideas without your marketing sounding like everyone else.Beginner · Planned outline: 4 lessons, about 45 minutesPlanned
  • AI in spreadsheetsGet AI to write, fix and explain spreadsheet formulas, and check what it gives you.Beginner · Planned outline: 4 lessons, about 40 minutesPlanned

Questions

Is it really free?

Yes. Every lesson, badge and certificate of completion is free. There’s no paid tier, no trial and no card. Some courses use outside tools, so each course lists them with their cost and the date we checked it, and we pick ones with a free plan where we can.

Do I need an account?

No. Every lesson is readable without one. An account only saves your progress, keeps your badges and lets us issue your certificate of completion. You sign in with a link sent to your email, so there are no passwords.

Is the certificate accredited?

No. It’s a certificate of completion: it shows you finished every lesson of a course. It isn’t a qualification and we aren’t an accredited body. What it does have is its own verification page, so anyone can check it’s real, and you can add it to LinkedIn.

Who writes the courses?

Jack Stovell, founder of Adapt Progress Evolve, which publishes this site. Each course is built by actually doing it: the prompts are the ones we used, and the finished page or plan you see is what we got.

How do you keep the screenshots current?

Every walkthrough is captured by a script we can re-run when a tool changes its screens, and each screenshot shows the date it was captured. Where a step happens inside a signed-in account we can’t script, we say so. We won’t show you an old or made-up screen instead.

What happens to my data?

We keep your email address, your progress and what you’ve earned. Your public profile is off unless you turn it on. You can export or delete everything from your dashboard at any time. Course news by email is a separate choice from signing in.