The Best Free Resources To Learn AI, In Order

In 1995, Jensen Huang realized the technology NVIDIA was founded on was wrong. So he went to Fry’s, bought three textbooks on OpenGL, and had his team teach themselves.

Your edge isn’t what you know. It’s how fast you learn what you don’t. Here are the best free resources to actually learn AI, simplest first. You don’t need all of them. Start at the top and keep going.

Start simple

Two free things you can use today. My free guide library is plain-English, copy-paste how-tos for real tasks, so start there. Then pick one daily newsletter and learn on autopilot. The Neuron explains AI like a human, and The Rundown AI gives you the news plus practical how-tos in about five minutes a day.

Learn by watching

The best free teachers on YouTube. Jeff Su for short, clean tutorials on using AI at work. The AI Advantage for practical ChatGPT and Claude workflows a beginner can copy today. Matt Wolfe to see what every new tool actually does before you waste time on it.

Take a free course

When you want real structure. Claude Academy (Anthropic’s free courses, formerly Anthropic Academy) teaches you to actually use Claude, and courses like AI Fluency give you a completion certificate. Elements of AI, from the University of Helsinki and MinnaLearn, is the friendliest free way to understand what AI even is.

One honest note: Andrew Ng’s AI for Everyone is still the best non-technical foundation, but it runs on Coursera and the course now costs $49. If that’s a stretch, Coursera offers financial aid.

Go deeper and build

For when you’re ready to level up. One Useful Thing, a Substack by Wharton professor Ethan Mollick, is the best writing on how to actually think about and use AI. Riley Brown shows you how to build real apps with AI and no code. And when you’re ready to go from watching to doing, with a plan and a group, take my 30-Day AI Challenge.

A list doesn’t teach you anything until it fits your week. Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT, fill in the brackets, and you get a 4-week plan that ends every week with a real task from your own work.

My 4-Week AI Learning Plan

You are my AI learning coach. Build me a realistic 4-week plan to learn AI using free resources, and keep me honest. About me: - My job or business: [what I do] - What I want AI to help with first: [e.g. writing emails faster, research, content, building a simple app] - My level right now: [never used it / use ChatGPT or Claude sometimes / use it daily] - Time I actually have: [e.g. 20 minutes a day on weekdays] Resources I want to use (only plan around these, don't add paid ones): - Learn AI With Mariah free guides (learnaiwithmariah.com/guides) - One daily newsletter: The Neuron or The Rundown AI - YouTube: Jeff Su, The AI Advantage, Matt Wolfe, Riley Brown - Courses: Claude Academy (academy.claude.com), Elements of AI - Ethan Mollick's One Useful Thing Steps: 1. Ask me up to 3 questions if anything above is unclear. 2. Pick the resources that fit my goal and level. Skip the rest and tell me why in one line each. 3. Make a week-by-week plan. Every week must end with one real task from my own work that I do with AI, not just watching or reading. 4. Keep each day inside the time I gave you. Format: - A short table per week: day, what to do, how long, which resource - Under each week: "Proof you learned it:" with the one real task Guardrails: don't invent course names, video titles or links. If you aren't sure a specific video or lesson exists, tell me what to search for instead.

The Real Win

You don’t have to start as the expert. You just have to be willing to become one.

Want a day-by-day plan instead of a map? Follow my 7-Day AI Starter. Brand new to all of it? Start with Getting Started With AI.

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