University of HelsinkiFree certificate
Elements of AI
The gentlest way in: a University of Helsinki course with no code and no maths beyond school level. It takes about 24 to 48 hours and the certificate is free.
never codedai literacy
23 courses in the catalogue
All free AI courses rated by level
Filter by where you are today, not where you'd like to be. Every course is rated on the same five-step heat scale, so the numbers mean the same thing everywhere on this site.
Take Elements of AI first if you have never coded: it is 36 hours, needs no programming and its certificate is free. If you manage people or projects, take AI For Everyone next (7 hours), then Generative AI for Everyone (6 hours) to use chat assistants with judgement. On Coursera, the certificate price is shown when you enrol.
Every course below is scored out of 10 on clarity, hands-on work, how up to date it is, depth and whether it is truly free. Scores are our editorial opinion. Hours and certificate rules come from each course's own page, and anything unchecked is marked.
Experience
Maths
Certificate
23 of 23 courses
DeepLearning.AIPaid certificate
AI For Everyone
Andrew Ng's non-technical primer on what AI is good for and how to plan around it at work. It takes 7 hours on Coursera, and the certificate is paid.
never codedai literacy
DeepLearning.AIPaid certificate
Generative AI for Everyone
What large language models can actually do for you and your team, without writing a line of code. Andrew Ng teaches it in 6 hours on Coursera, certificate paid.
never codedai literacypromptingllms
KaggleFree certificate
Kaggle Learn: Python
Kaggle's 7-lesson Python course takes about 5 hours, costs nothing and pairs every lesson with an exercise notebook. Kaggle gives a free completion certificate.
never codedpython
Google CloudFree certificate
Introduction to Generative AI
A short, no-code explainer on what generative AI is and how it differs from other machine learning.
never codedai literacyllms
University of HelsinkiFree certificate
Ethics of AI
A free, no-code course on fairness, accountability and transparency in AI systems.
never codedai ethicsai literacy
KaggleFree certificate
Kaggle Intro to Machine Learning
Kaggle's 7-lesson first machine learning course takes about 3 hours, costs nothing and ends with a competition. Kaggle gives a free completion certificate.
some Pythonmachine learningpython
GoogleNo certificate
Machine Learning Crash Course
Google's Machine Learning Crash Course has 12 modules and takes about 13.5 hours by Google's own timings. It is free, with quiz badges and no certificate.
some Pythonmachine learningllms
MicrosoftNo certificate
AI for Beginners
A 24-lesson open curriculum on GitHub covering classic AI, ML and a little deep learning.
some Pythonmachine learningai literacy
Harvard UniversityFree certificate
CS50's Introduction to Programming with Python
Harvard's Python course for people who have never programmed. The cleanest route from zero to writing real code.
never codedpython
KaggleFree certificate
Pandas
Short, hands-on lessons on the data library every ML tutorial quietly assumes you already know.
some Pythonpython
MicrosoftNo certificate
ML for Beginners
A free, open-source curriculum on classic machine learning with scikit-learn, taught through small projects.
some Pythonmachine learningpython
MicrosoftNo certificate
Generative AI for Beginners
Microsoft's open-source course on building apps with large language models, from prompting to retrieval.
some Pythonllmsprompting
DeepLearning.AI and OpenAINo certificate
ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers
A short course on getting reliable output from an LLM API, with runnable notebooks.
some Pythonpromptingllms
3Blue1BrownNo certificate
Neural Networks (video series)
Grant Sanderson's animated series on how neural networks, backpropagation and transformers work.
never codeddeep learningmathsllms
HarvardFree certificate
CS50's Introduction to AI with Python
CS50's Introduction to AI with Python runs 7 weeks with 12 projects, costs nothing and gives a free CS50 Certificate if you score 70% on every project.
some Pythonmachine learningpythoncomputer vision
DeepLearning.AI and StanfordPaid certificate
Machine Learning Specialization
The Machine Learning Specialization has 3 courses and 95 hours of Andrew Ng's lessons. Coursera's FAQ says you cannot take it for free, so check the cost first.
some Pythonmachine learningdeep learning
Hugging FaceNo certificate
Hugging Face LLM Course
Hugging Face LLM Course has 12 chapters of 6 to 8 hours each, costs nothing and has no certificate. You learn LLMs with the Transformers library.
comfortable coderllmsnlpdeep learning
KaggleFree certificate
Intro to Deep Learning
A short, practical first look at neural networks in Keras, run entirely in Kaggle notebooks.
some Pythondeep learningmachine learning
Hugging FaceFree certificate
AI Agents Course
Build LLM agents that use tools and plan steps, using open-source frameworks and open models.
comfortable coderllms
fast.aiNo certificate
Practical Deep Learning for Coders
Practical Deep Learning for Coders has 9 lessons of about 90 minutes, costs nothing and has no certificate. You deploy your own model by the end of lesson 2.
comfortable coderdeep learningcomputer visionnlp
Andrej KarpathyNo certificate
Neural Networks: Zero to Hero
Neural Networks: Zero to Hero is 8 free YouTube videos, about 14.5 hours, where Andrej Karpathy builds a GPT from scratch in code. No certificate.
comfortable coderdeep learningllms
Hugging FaceFree certificate
Deep Reinforcement Learning Course
Train agents that learn by trial and error, from Q-learning up to modern policy methods.
comfortable coderreinforcement learningdeep learning
Questions people ask
How are the courses rated?
Each course gets a score out of 10, built from 5 sub-scores: clarity, hands-on work, how up to date it is, depth and whether it is truly free. The scores are our editorial opinion, not learner votes, and affiliate links never change them.
Which AI courses need no coding?
Elements of AI, AI For Everyone and Generative AI for Everyone need no code. Elements of AI is 36 hours and starts from nothing. The two Coursera courses take 7 and 6 hours and suit people who decide about AI at work.
Which AI courses give a free certificate?
Elements of AI gives a free certificate when you complete at least 90% of the exercises and get at least 50% right. On Coursera, the certificate price is shown when you enrol, so we cannot quote one for AI For Everyone.
How long do free AI courses take?
The no-code courses we have reviewed take 6 to 36 hours. Generative AI for Everyone is 6 hours, AI For Everyone is 7 and Elements of AI is 36. At 5 hours a week, the longest takes about 7 weeks.
Last checked : course hours, certificate rules and Coursera pricing wording on each published review.
Rather follow a plan?
Our learning paths put the right courses in the right order, with a small project after each one.