Guide · Updated 2026
The best free AI courses, for every level
You can learn artificial intelligence without paying anything. These are the free AI courses we trust most, picked by goal, from a first look at what AI is to building large language models. Every one is free to study online.
Our picks by goal
Complete beginners, no maths
AI in Bed: Beginner level
AI in Bed · Ten-minute lessons on a phone, with pictures, quick quizzes and spaced review. No sign-up.
Beginners who want a certificate
Elements of AI
University of Helsinki & MinnaLearn · A longer, gentle course from the University of Helsinki with a free certificate.
Using AI at work
AI in Bed: AI at work track
AI in Bed · Picking the right tasks, prompting well, checking output and knowing the limits.
Your first hands-on machine learning
Machine Learning Crash Course
Google · Google's practical course with interactive exercises. Openly licensed.
Coders who want to build models
Practical Deep Learning for Coders
fast.ai (Jeremy Howard) · fast.ai's top-down course: you train real models from the first lesson.
Visual intuition
Neural Networks video series
3Blue1Brown · 3Blue1Brown's animations make neural networks and transformers click.
Understanding LLMs from scratch
Neural Networks: Zero to Hero
Andrej Karpathy · Andrej Karpathy builds backpropagation, then a GPT, in plain Python.
Building with LLMs
Hugging Face LLM Course
Hugging Face · Transformers, tokenisers, fine-tuning and LLM apps with open tools.
A free AI course in ten-minute lessons
AI in Bed turns the material below into 42 short lessons you can read in bed: three levels, each ending in a final check, plus tracks for a goal. It's a friendly first step before the longer courses.
- Free beginner AI course · 14 lessons · No maths, no code. Just the big ideas.
- Free intermediate AI course · 14 lessons · A little maths, a lot of intuition.
- Free advanced AI course · 14 lessons · How frontier AI actually works.
Free beginner AI courses
- Elements of AI The gentlest free introduction to what AI is and isn't. No maths or code.
- Ethics of AI Fairness, accountability, transparency and the societal side of AI.
- Machine Learning Crash Course Fast-paced, practical intro with interactive visualisations and exercises.
- Neural Networks video series The best visual intuition for neural nets, gradient descent, backprop and transformers.
- Kaggle Learn Bite-sized hands-on courses in Python, pandas, ML and deep learning.
Free intermediate AI courses
- Neural Networks and Deep Learning A classic free book that builds a digit-recogniser from first principles.
- Practical Deep Learning for Coders Top-down, code-first: train state-of-the-art models from lesson one.
- Dive into Deep Learning Interactive textbook with runnable code in PyTorch, JAX and TensorFlow.
- CS229: Machine Learning notes The maths behind classical ML, from regression to SVMs.
- CS231n: Deep Learning for Computer Vision Superb notes on CNNs, backprop and training neural networks.
- MIT 6.S191: Intro to Deep Learning Yearly-updated lectures and labs covering the whole deep learning stack.
Free advanced AI courses
- Neural Networks: Zero to Hero Build backprop, then a GPT, from scratch in Python.
- Hugging Face LLM Course Transformers, tokenisers, fine-tuning and building LLM apps.
- Hugging Face AI Agents Course Build tool-using agents with open frameworks.
- Hugging Face Diffusion Course Theory and code for diffusion models.
- Hugging Face Deep RL Course From Q-learning to PPO, with hands-on environments.
- CS224n: NLP with Deep Learning Word vectors to transformers and LLMs, with public lectures.
- Reinforcement Learning: An Introduction The RL textbook, free online.
- Spinning Up in Deep RL Concise intro to deep RL algorithms with clean implementations.
Need proof of completion? See free AI courses with certificates. Want a schedule? Follow the 30-day AI learning plan. Looking for articles, papers and interactive tools too? The Library has all 30.
Questions about free AI courses
What is the best free AI course for complete beginners?
Start with something short and non-technical: the AI in Bed Beginner level (ten-minute lessons, no maths) or Elements of AI from the University of Helsinki. Then move on to Google's Machine Learning Crash Course when you want hands-on practice.
Are there free AI courses with a certificate?
Yes. Elements of AI (University of Helsinki) and Kaggle Learn give free certificates of completion. Several Hugging Face courses, such as the AI Agents Course, also offer free certificates.
Can I learn AI for free without coding?
Yes. AI in Bed's Beginner level, Elements of AI and the Ethics of AI course need no code at all. 3Blue1Brown's neural network videos explain the ideas visually.
How long does it take to learn AI?
You can understand the core ideas in a few weeks of short daily sessions. Becoming a machine learning engineer takes months: a practical course like fast.ai's Practical Deep Learning, then Karpathy's Zero to Hero and the Hugging Face LLM Course.
Which free course is best for generative AI and large language models?
For understanding, the AI in Bed Advanced level. For building, the Hugging Face LLM Course and Andrej Karpathy's Neural Networks: Zero to Hero, where you build a GPT from scratch.