The best AI education on the planet is free. The only hard part is knowing where to start. Here's the exact order I'd send anyone today.
I get some version of this question every week — from founders, from friends, from people who've spent 20 years in a career that's shifting under them: where do I even begin? The problem was never access. It's the paralysis of a thousand five-star lists all screaming “start here.” So here's the path — four steps, in order, all free. Not “free trial.” Free.
A plain-language foundation: what AI is, how machine learning works, where it fits, and where it doesn't.
Start here even if you think you're past it. It builds the mental model everything else sits on — and it's the one course on this list that hands you a free certificate at the end.
Eleven sessions on how generative models actually work — prompt engineering, system prompts, RAG — plus what it all means for work, policy, and society.
This is from Spring 2024, so a couple of examples have aged. Ignore that. The fundamentals it teaches haven't changed, and understanding the machine underneath the hype is what separates people who use AI from people who get used by it.
Two short, hands-on courses built for people who don't write code. Prompting, real workflows, and how AI actually lands inside an organization.
Now you make it useful. Do these while you're using the tools day to day — the point is fluency, not theory.
Search, optimization, machine learning, neural networks — implemented in your own Python programs.
Only if you want to build. It's a real commitment. New to Python? Start with CS50x first, then come back.
That's a genuine path — from “I don't get it” to “I can build with it” — for the price of your attention. The people who come out ahead in a paradigm shift aren't the ones who panic. They're the ones who pick a starting point and take the first step.
I keep this list current and add to it as better free resources show up. Want it as a one-page PDF, and a heads-up when I update it? Drop your email.
This is a scaled-down version of what I do for teams: map the path before anyone burns weeks on the wrong tool. If that's a problem you're sitting with — for yourself or your company — that's what All Stone Tech does.
