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Google AI Essentials is a solid overview. It is also paid, and only one of its five courses is about prompting. Here are the alternatives, grouped by what you actually want out of it.
Editorial note: Iro AI is our app. Where it appears below we say so, and it has to earn its spot by the same criteria as everything else.
If you want a free course with a certificate, start with OpenAI Academy or Anthropic's AI Fluency course. If you want foundations, take Elements of AI. If what you are missing is practice, a course is the wrong shape, and a daily practice app like Iro AI fits better.
Google AI Essentials is a reasonable overview from a name employers recognise. The two reasons people look elsewhere are cost and depth: Coursera's own page says it is not free, and prompting gets one course out of five.
On Coursera it is a series of five short courses:
Coursera says each course includes hands-on activities and graded assessments, and you finish with a certificate from Google. The stated length varies by page: Google's own page says under five hours, Coursera's description says under ten, and the five course lengths listed on Coursera add up to about eight.
Cost. Coursera's FAQ answers "Can I take the course for free?" with "No, you cannot take this course for free." In the US and Canada it is $49 a month after a 7-day free trial, and Coursera offers financial aid. The page still shows an "Enroll for free" button, which is the trial.
Practice this, don't just read it.
Iro AI turns ideas like the ones in this post into 5-minute exercises with feedback. Free tier, Pro from $4.17 a month ($49.99 a year, 7-day free trial).
AI For Everyone, from DeepLearning.AI and taught by Andrew Ng, is the other course people usually compare. Coursera lists it at about seven hours over four weeks: what AI is, building AI projects, building AI in your company, and AI and society. Each week ends in a quiz.
It is a course about understanding AI as a manager or decision-maker. Its syllabus lists no hands-on prompting, so if you finish it and still don't feel comfortable using ChatGPT or Claude for real work, that is by design rather than a gap in your effort. You can enroll free; the certificate and graded work need the paid option.
Grouped by what each is good for. Everything here except our own row is from the provider's own page.
| Option | Best for | Length | Cost | Practice |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google AI Essentials | A recognised overview certificate | Under 5 to under 10 hours, depending on the page | $49/month in the US and Canada after a 7-day trial | Hands-on activities in each course |
| OpenAI Academy | Free, short courses on ChatGPT | 60 to 90 minutes per course | Free with a ChatGPT account | Practice giving context and refining outputs |
| Anthropic AI Fluency | A free framework for working with AI | Not verified by us | Free | Not verified by us |
| Elements of AI | Foundations, no coding | 4 to 8 hours (Part 1) | Free | Exercises alongside the theory |
| Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT (Vanderbilt) | A deeper prompting course | About 18 hours over 6 modules | Free to enroll; certificate is paid | 7 assignments, including building a prompt-based app |
| Iro AI (ours) | Daily practice using AI tools | 5-minute lessons; 34 paths, 522 lessons, 3,000+ exercises | Every path open, paced by a Battery that gives a lesson a day and recharges overnight. Pro is $49.99/year or $9.99/month with a 7-day trial | You write real prompts in every lesson |
About the blank cells. Anything marked "not verified by us" is something we could not confirm from the provider's own page at the time of writing. Prices are US list prices as each provider's own page showed them on October 30, 2026; they change, so check the page before you enter a card, on any option here, including ours.
AI For Everyone explains what AI can do for an organisation. The natural next step is learning to use the tools yourself. Take OpenAI Academy's AI Foundations if you use ChatGPT, or Anthropic's AI Fluency course if you use Claude, then practise daily so it sticks. Our 30-day plan for beginners lays out what to do each week, and the free AI literacy test shows where you are starting from.
Practice this, don't just read it.
Iro AI turns ideas like the ones in this post into 5-minute exercises with feedback. Free tier, Pro from $4.17 a month ($49.99 a year, 7-day free trial).
No. Coursera's own page says you cannot take it for free. In the US and Canada it costs $49 a month after a 7-day free trial, and Coursera offers financial aid.
OpenAI Academy and Anthropic's AI Fluency course are both free and give a certificate of completion. Elements of AI is free if you want foundations rather than tool skills.
Not as hands-on practice. Its syllabus covers what AI is, AI projects, AI in companies and AI and society, with a quiz each week, and lists no prompting exercises.
A short course on the tool you actually use, such as OpenAI Academy for ChatGPT or Anthropic's AI Fluency for Claude, followed by daily practice so the skill sticks.