Upskilling in AI

Upskilling in AI is one of the most productive things you can do with your free time right now.

With every day that passes, AI technology is making new strides, and the demand for AI-related skills increases along with it. A 2024 Deloitte study found that many executives believe AI could reduce entry-level jobs, making upskilling essential for staying competitive. To help close this knowledge gap, top companies are publishing high-quality AI learning content.

Pairing AI with automation will change how you work.

Whether you're looking to upskill in a specific AI-related area or just want a better understanding of where we are now and where we're heading, investing time to learn this stuff will unequivocally pay off.

The problem: there's a lot of AI learning content out there, and some of it is not so great, while others cost thousands of dollars to complete. I spent time sifting through a variety of online AI courses available right now to pull out the best, most actionable, and affordable ones on offer.

The courses on this list are meant for beginners who want to introduce AI into their work, so check your imposter syndrome at the door and start learning.

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The best AI courses for beginners at a glance

Course Name	Creator	What You'll Learn	Time to Complete	Price
Generative AI for Everyone	DeepLearning.AI	Intro to AI, prompt engineering, using AI in daily work	Under 10 hours	Free for audit or $49 for certificate
Applying Generative AI for Business	LinkedIn	How to generate prompts, using generative AI for writing and research	Around 15 hours	Free for 1 month, then $39.99/month
Google AI Essentials	Google	Foundational AI concepts, practical use cases, responsible AI	Under 10 hours	Free with paid certificate
AI for Business Specialization	University of Pennsylvania	AI fundamentals, applications in marketing and finance, AI strategy	Around 1 month	7-day free trial, then $59/month
AI Foundations for Everyone	IBM	Introduction to AI, using IBM Watson, creating a chatbot	Around 7 days	7-day free trial, then $59/month
Elements of AI	University of Helsinki	AI problem solving, machine learning, societal implications	Self-paced	Free
Increase Productivity Using AI	Zapier	How to craft powerful prompts, pairing automation with AI	Under 30 minutes	Free
AI for Marketing Course	HubSpot	Creating prompts, leveraging AI in marketing and customer experience	3 hours	Free

 

Why learn about AI?

Instead of spending your time asking Google, "Will AI take my job?" you're better off learning how to use AI to your advantage. Because if you don't, the answer will likely be a hard yes.

Regardless of how you feel about AI, it's a tool every professional can use to do their job better. That's true for writers, coders, project managers, HR professionals, marketers, salespeople—and everyone in between.

The good news is you don't have to be a tech expert to learn how to use AI. Its widespread adoption is due in part to how accessible it is. If you have access to the internet, you can use AI.

So learn how to embrace AI at work. These eight classes can help.

1. Generative AI for Everyone (DeepLearning.AI)

DeepLearning.AI is an ed-tech company solely dedicated to educating the world on AI. The company is headed by Dr. Andrew Ng, a global leading voice in artificial intelligence. Any course you enroll in with him, you know you're in good hands.

Andrew Ng also co-founded Coursera, so you can access a lot of his content there. His course Generative AI for Everyone is by far the most popular and up-to-date. This course is a modern version of his older "AI for Everyone" course, specifically designed to address the rapid evolution of large language models (LLMs) and generative AI.

The course covers a lot of introductory ground, including what generative AI can (and can't) do, practical applications for day-to-day work, and tips on effective prompt engineering. It also delves into the societal impact of AI. The course is non-technical, so no prior knowledge or coding skills are required.

While the course information says you can complete it in under 10 hours, there's a lot of content to get through. Modules include several videos and quizzes, so it could easily take a bit longer.

• Price: Free to audit the course; $49 to take the final assessment and earn a certificate of completion.
  
  

2. Applying Generative AI as a Business Professional (LinkedIn)

If there's one platform that knows the value of upskilling, it's LinkedIn. If you search on LinkedIn Learning, you'll find a whole bunch of educational AI video content available.

Much of the content is useful for providing a top-level context for using AI at work. Helpfully, LinkedIn organizes a lot of the content into cohesive learning paths.

The Applying Generative AI as a Business Professional path is one of the most practical. It shows you how to generate the best prompts, use generative AI to write content, perform solid research, and create AI-generated images. It's a comprehensive resource to help you leverage generative AI in your job.

Completing this path will take around 15 hours. It includes video content and quizzes, and if you take the final exam, you'll earn a Professional Certificate from Microsoft that you can display on your LinkedIn profile.

A subscription to LinkedIn Learning is free for the first month, so you could complete this course within the free trial.

• Price: Free for 1 month; $39.99/month (or $323.88/year) after that.
  
  

3. Google AI Essentials (Google)

It's no surprise that Google is also offering a whole lot of different AI-related online courses and educational content. Of all Google's AI material, the Google AI Essentials course is a great entry point.

This introductory course provides a solid overview of foundational AI concepts and a guide to using AI responsibly. It's practical and hands-on, teaching you how to craft effective prompts and apply AI to a variety of work tasks.

The course is self-paced and designed to fit into busy schedules. You don't need any technical experience to begin, and the skills you'll learn can be applied to many different roles and industries. The course also includes quizzes and exercises to test your knowledge.

• Price: Free to access the content; a certificate of completion requires a subscription to the platform.
  
  

4. AI for Business Specialization (University of Pennsylvania)

The University of Pennsylvania offers an AI For Business Specialization course through Coursera. It's made up of four modules, each taught by a different professor from the Wharton School, one of the top business schools in the world:

• AI Fundamentals for Non-Data Scientists
• AI Applications in Marketing and Finance
• AI Applications in People Management
• AI Strategy and Governance

The course is suitable for beginners, but the content is aimed at business leaders and managers. It focuses on providing a holistic overview of these different areas of AI and how they relate to each other. The content also gives guidance on how to best implement AI across different areas of your organization.

Completing the entire course should take around one month, assuming you can dedicate 10 hours per week. You're also expected to take part in peer-reviewed assessments for each module to earn a certificate.

• Price: 7-day free trial; $59/month after that.
  
  

5. AI Foundations for Everyone Specialization (IBM)

IBM offers a few different beginner-level AI courses through Coursera. Its AI Foundations for Everyone Specialization course is a practical and specialized course that gives you actionable knowledge.

It's delivered in four modules, starting with an introduction to AI and its uses. The next two modules focus on generative AI, introducing applications and how prompts work. The final module is more hands-on, where you'll get an introduction to IBM's generative AI product, IBM Watson, and learn how to use it to create a chatbot without any coding.

• Price: 7-day free trial; $59/month after that.
  
  

6. Elements of AI (University of Helsinki)

The University of Helsinki launched its introductory Elements of AI course back in 2018, and the content is regularly updated. Since its launch, more than a million people have taken the course, and it's available in over 25 languages.

This is a great course that comes with practical exercises to allow you to apply some of the information you're consuming. The course is made up of six core blocks, including chapters on AI problem solving, machine learning, neural networks, and the societal implications of the technology.

There's no certification of completion, but the course is completely free, and you can complete it at your own pace. The course is text-based with no video accompaniment, which is something to consider if you're a visual learner.

• Price: Free.
  
  

7. Increase Productivity Using AI (Zapier)

Increase Productivity Using AI by Zapier introduces you to powerful generative AI tools and showcases ways to use them in your work. In under 30 minutes, you'll learn how to craft powerful prompts, pair automation with AI, and even build your own AI chatbot without any coding.

If you're more hands-on and want to get a quick crash course in the basics before diving in, this is a great course to start with. Once you're done, you can experiment with AI tools and connect them to all the other apps you use at work.

• Price: Free.
  
  

8. AI for Marketing Course (HubSpot)

You don't have to be a paying user to take HubSpot's AI for Marketing Course. In fact, you don't even have to be a HubSpot user. In this introductory course, they cover all the AI marketing essentials without even showing you the HubSpot dashboard.

Instead, they bring in a range of marketing experts to give a clear overview and offer insights into how they're currently using AI in their own campaigns. It's a six-lesson video course that covers a lot of ground, from practical tips on how to use and optimize AI prompts to using your data to make AI-driven marketing decisions.

The scope of the content makes it valuable for marketing beginners all the way up to business owners. The informal but informative delivery of the content makes the course engaging.

• Price: Free.
  
  

Learn about AI—and then put it to work

Regardless of which course you go for, any time you spend educating yourself on AI is going to be a smart investment. If you have a particular area of interest related to AI that's not covered in this list, it's worth searching to see if there's learning content already available on that topic.

For every hour you spend learning about AI, spend an hour tinkering with it too. ChatGPT is an easy place to start, but here are some other tools to check out:

• Video: Runway and Google Veo for AI-first video editing and creation.
• Marketing: Jasper for copywriting and Cockpit for a marketing dashboard.
• Productivity: Microsoft 365 Copilot to bring AI into Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.