The artificial intelligence hype cycle has continued long enough: It might just be time to learn a thing or two about the latest technology trend that’s been impacting every business industry at the same time for a couple years now.
If you’re the average person, however, that’s easier said than done. Figuring out AI — or at least, figuring out how to use it within your job role, whatever that may be — can be an overwhelming task. So, we’ve rounded up the top AI training courses to check out.
We’ve covered the best essential AI courses in the past, but there are plenty of options to chose from, all ranging in the amount of time required and the type of knowledge you’ll gain. Here are the best courses to know about in June 2024.
IBM: Generative AI for Everyone
⏰Length: 4-8 hours
IBM is a big brand in the technology space, so its just-the-basics explainer course is a good starting point for anyone who’s serious about figuring out how AI works, what applications it has to offer, and what use cases you can try it for.
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This course is a self-paced training session, although the creators estimate it’ll take about four weeks, with just 1-2 hours of work per week. It covers AI terms including Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Neural Networks; It tackles the ethical concerns to know about the nascent technology; and it comes with advice from top experts about careers within the AI world.
To get started, head over to edX and sign up for the completely free course. You’ll even get a badge upon completion, and it’s subtitled with a wide range of languages — including Deutsch, Español, Français, and Português, among others.
Introduction to AI for Business Users
⏰Length: About 2 hours
Looking for the fastest way to get fully up to speed on using AI for business cases? If you’re using the Microsoft 365 business suite, look no further than this quick 2-hour course. It’s an accessible way to understand the benefits of artificial intelligence for everyone who doesn’t have a deep STEM background.
This course is specific to learning the Microsoft Power Platform and how to use the technology to craft reports and dashboards that take advantage of AI-powered data insights. It’s far from a broad application of AI, but Microsoft platforms loom large in the business world, so you’ll likely have plenty of chances to flex your skills and impress everyone with your AI know-how. Best of all, it will only take an afternoon to complete.
You can check out the course and others today, straight from the Microsoft website.
Stanford: Machine Learning Specialization
⏰ Length: 80 hours
With this series, you’ll learn from Stanford University’s Andrew Ng over three courses, all covering the ins and outs of machine learning. It’s an updated version of a course that first launched in 2012 and has been rated 4.9 out of 5 by a total of more than 4.8 million viewers since then, so it comes highly recommended.
It’s billed as a path towards helping students “break into AI or build a career in machine learning,” or at least get them started on that process. You’ll gain a better understanding of modern machine learning, complete with supervised and unsupervised learning, as well as machine learning innovation best practices like “evaluating and tuning models, taking a data-centric approach to improving performance, and more.”
It’s about two months long, for those who take 10 hours a week, and like most free online courses, you’ll be able to study at your own pace. Check it out now on the Coursera website.
HarvardX: CS50’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python
⏰ Length: 70-210 hours
Learning the basics of AI is great, but sometimes it pays off to jump into a much more specific training course: You’ll learn actionable skills that can directly translate to an AI-related position within a coding field you already have an understanding of.
If you know Python, than this course might be for you. It’ll cover machine learning within that programming language and at seven weeks for 10-30 hours per week, this course won’t be easy. But you’ll emerge with knowledge of a laundry list of concepts that include graph search algorithms, adversarial search, logical inference, probability theory, Bayesian networks, Markov models and a whole lot more.
Head over to edX to sign up for the course or to learn more about the specifics.
LinkedIn: How to Research and Write Using Generative AI Tools
⏰ Length: 5 hours
Boosting research and writing is a pro that plenty of generative AI bots like ChatGPT claim they can do. In practice, it’s not so easy, since you’ll need to figure out the pitfalls of prompt engineering and tweaking your results to actually get a clean, well-composed answer in response.
LinkedIn is here to help, with a course that landed smack at the top of the social platform’s top ten list of the best courses available on its LinkedIn Learning website. Led by Dave Birss, the course will take users through how to interact with generative AI bots with prompts. You’ll avoid getting bogged down in technical knowledge, but you’ll learn fascinating facts. Did you know saying “please” gets you better results when interacting with an AI?
Check out the full course over at LinkedIn, where it’s available free, as long as you sign up for a free month-long trial.
Diving Into AI Learning
For now, at least, AI technology is a helpful tool, and learning a few things about it can easily put you well ahead of the majority of workers out there. If you’re anticipating a change in your career, are job-seeking now, or just want to have something to point to when your next annual review rolls around, you can definitely do a lot worse than one of the courses listed above.
But if you want an even quicker catch-up, we’ve got you covered. Check out some of our previous AI coverage here at Tech.co to learn more quick tips on how to write the best prompts, which GPT bots are actually helpful, or even how to create a resume template with AI.
Just don’t forget the downsides to AI: You should always be wary of the possibility for hallucinations and the cybersecurity risks or legal problems that can accompany them. AI might be the hot new trend, but it’s far from a perfect technology.
