3 Free AI Certifications From Microsoft + LinkedIn

PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer found job ads that ask for AI skills pay an average 62% more than similar roles that don’t, up from 57% the year before. (PwC, June 2026) If your resume has zero AI on it, that’s the gap.

You don’t need a degree to start closing it. Each path below is 5 or 6 short courses, about 4 to 5 hours total, on LinkedIn Learning. Sign in with your LinkedIn account and start.

Part 1 of this series covered the 3 free Claude certifications from Anthropic. Do both rounds and your profile shows real AI work by Sunday.

Best for any office worker

Five courses on AI basics, prompting, responsible use and Microsoft 365 Copilot at work. If your job lives in Word, Excel, Outlook or Teams, start here.

Time: about 4 hours across 5 courses. All five are free. Start the path here.

Heads up: LinkedIn says this path gets updated on November 16, 2026. Finish before then to earn the certificate without extra courses being added.

Paste this into Claude before you start. It turns the path into a 2-week plan tied to your actual job.

Career Essentials Study Plan

You are my career-development coach. Help me turn the Career Essentials in Generative AI path (Microsoft + LinkedIn) into skills I use at work this month, with a certificate on my profile at the end. MY CONTEXT - Role and team: [e.g. "Marketing manager at a 200-person B2B SaaS company"] - Tools I use every day: [e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, Slack, Salesforce] - Do I have Microsoft 365 Copilot at work? [YES / NO / NOT SURE] - 3 parts of my job I most want to speed up: [LIST] - The 1 thing my manager has hinted I should do better: [e.g. "faster weekly reports"] - My 12-month goal: [PROMOTION / NEW JOB / LATERAL MOVE / EARN MORE IN MY ROLE] The path has 5 short courses: Generative AI: From Prompts to Partnership, Everyday AI Concepts, Your Top AI Questions Answered: AI Literacy for Everyone, Learning Microsoft 365 Copilot for Work, and Ethics in the Age of Generative AI. DO THIS 1. Put the 5 courses in the best order for my role and goal, with one sentence each on why it matters to me specifically. 2. For each course, give me one real task from my job to apply it to the same day I finish it. 3. For each course, write one ready-to-paste prompt for that task. If I have Copilot, write it for Copilot in Word, Excel or Outlook. If I don't, write it for Claude or ChatGPT. Mark the parts I swap in with [brackets]. 4. Build a 2-week schedule (about 20 to 30 minutes a day) that ends with one small thing I can show my manager that proves the new skill. 5. Write two short LinkedIn posts: one the day I start, one the day I finish showing a real workflow I built. Plus a one-line headline tweak. 6. Give me the one sentence to say in my next 1:1 that positions me as the AI person on the team without sounding like a title grab. GUARDRAILS - Never suggest pasting confidential company data into a tool my company hasn't approved. - Keep it specific to my job. If you're missing something you need, ask me first. - Warm, direct, slightly competitive. Short sentences.

Best for execs and senior leaders

Six courses on bringing AI into company strategy, leading responsible AI and building AI skills across a team. If you’re a director or above, this one says you’re leading the change instead of waiting on it.

Time: about 5 hours across 6 courses. All six are free. Start the path here.

Paste this into Claude the day you finish. It turns what you learned into a 90-day rollout plan you can take to your boss.

90-Day AI Rollout Plan

You are my executive AI strategy advisor. I just finished the AI for Organizational Leaders path (Microsoft + LinkedIn). Build the one-page 90-day plan I'll actually use to lead AI adoption on my team. MY CONTEXT - My title and team: [e.g. "VP of Operations, 24 people across CS and field ops"] - Company size and industry: [e.g. "1,200-person logistics company"] - The 1 or 2 CEO or board priorities this year: [LIST] - My team's biggest operational pain point: [DESCRIBE] - My own AI fluency: [beginner / intermediate / advanced] - Our AI policy today: [permissive / cautious / locked down / none yet] - Approved AI tools we can use: [LIST or "not sure"] - Industry-specific legal or data risks: [LIST or "standard"] - The person most likely to resist this: [ROLE + WHY] WRITE THE PLAN IN 8 SECTIONS 1. Thesis: 3 sentences max. Tie it to one CEO priority and name the outcome I commit to by day 90. 2. Three pilot workflows. For each: the workflow in one sentence, a visibility score (1-10), an ROI score (1-10), why this one over the obvious alternative, and the single metric that proves it worked. 3. The one legal or compliance question to bring to legal before any pilot goes live, with the exact wording so it lands as collaboration. 4. The week-one message to my team: what we're piloting, what isn't changing, who owns what. 5. Milestones for days 1-15, 16-30, 31-60 and 61-90: what's built, what's measured, what I report up. 6. The one peer or report whose buy-in unlocks the rest, and the short private case I'll make to them first. 7. The 4 or 5 numbers I'll report at day 90, each with a baseline, plus one qualitative win. 8. Two AI initiatives I'm deliberately not doing this quarter, and why. GUARDRAILS - Only recommend tools on my approved list. If the list is empty, say what to get approved first. - No hype lines. Write it the way a CFO would expect to read it. - If any input is missing, ask before you write.

Best for team leads and people managers

Six courses on using AI in day-to-day management. They cover coaching and career conversations with your direct reports, plus team culture and responsible AI.

Time: about 5 hours across 6 courses. Five are free. The sixth, Amplify Your Critical Thinking with AI, needs LinkedIn Learning, which has a 1-month free trial. Start the path here.

Paste this into Claude after you finish. It writes you a coaching-brief skill you can run every Friday on your 1:1 notes. To install it, zip the folder and upload it in Claude under Customize (being renamed Plugins, so click whichever you see), then Skills.

Coaching Brief Skill Builder

You are my management coach. I just finished the AI for Managers path (Microsoft + LinkedIn). Write me a reusable Claude skill called coaching-brief that turns one week of my 1:1 notes into a one-page coaching brief per direct report. MY CONTEXT - My title and team size: [TITLE + NUMBER OF REPORTS] - My management style in 3 words: [e.g. "warm, direct, high-bar"] - My biggest management challenge right now: [e.g. "one underperformer, one person ready for promotion"] - 1:1 cadence: [e.g. "30 minutes weekly"] - Where my notes live: [Google Docs / Notion / meeting-notes tool / a notebook I photograph] THE SKILL SHOULD - Ask for: the report's name and role, this week's 1:1 notes, the last 3 weeks of notes for trend context, their current career goal, and any team signals (peer feedback, project updates). - Produce a brief under 350 words with 5 parts: 1. One specific win to call out, specific enough that they know I noticed. 2. One growth conversation I've been avoiding, framed as a coaching question, with the exact opening line. 3. One AI workflow to teach them this month: which tool, which prompt, applied to which task they already do. 4. One career question about where they want to be in 18 months. 5. One red flag or nuance to watch, even a faint one. - Write in my voice, as what I'd say to them. No "you should" and no corporate phrases. - Be candid about red flags. Flag anything that belongs with HR instead of a 1:1. OUTPUT Give me a complete SKILL.md: YAML frontmatter with name: coaching-brief and a description under 200 characters that says when to use it, then the instructions. Then tell me in two lines how to zip the folder and upload it in Claude.

The certificate is half the value. The other half is putting it where recruiters see it.

Use Add to profile

When you finish a path, LinkedIn Learning shows your certificate with an Add to profile button. Click it and it fills in Licenses & certifications for you.

Or add it by hand

Go to your profile, click Add profile section, then Recommended, then Add licenses & certifications. Use the exact path name from this page, put LinkedIn as the issuing organization and the day you finished as the issue date.

Lead with it in interviews

"I just finished Microsoft and LinkedIn’s [path name] and I’ve already built a workflow for [one specific task]. Want me to show you?" That line puts you ahead of everyone who listed the badge and stopped.

Want The Full Stack

Pair these with the 3 free Claude certifications, then do 7 days to AI fluency so the badge is backed by real skill.

3 FreeAI CertificationsFrom Microsoft + LinkedIn

3 Free
AI Certifications
From Microsoft + LinkedIn