Take one short course from the makers, then practise on your own work with a free assistant. Anthropic's Claude 101 is free and covers prompts, projects, skills and research, with a certificate. OpenAI Academy's AI Foundations takes about 70 minutes, self-paced, and ends with a completion certificate. For the ideas behind AI, the University of Helsinki's Elements of AI is a free course with no maths or programming. In India, AI For All, carrying the Digital India and CBSE marks and built with Intel, takes about four hours and is available in 11 Indian languages. Students in India can claim a free year of Google's student plan for Gemini until 31 December 2026. Then pick one task you do every week and do it with AI for a month, asking it to explain each step so you learn the method, not just the answer.
Part of Prompting on eChai Explore.
On the AI map, 29 October 2026 AI assistants Research and search
7 resources.
Anthropic's free course on using Claude for everyday work: first conversations, getting better results, projects, artifacts, skills, connectors and Research, with a certificate at the end.
Anthropic Academy Nov 2026
Open anthropic.skilljar.com →Anthropic's course on working with AI well: when to delegate, how to describe a task, and how to judge what comes back.
Anthropic Academy Nov 2026
Open anthropic.skilljar.com →OpenAI's learning hub: the AI Foundations course (about 70 minutes, self-paced, with a completion certificate), Applied AI Foundations for repeatable workflows, and guides to ChatGPT for work and education.
OpenAI Nov 2026
Open openai.com →A free online introduction to AI for non-experts with no complicated maths or programming, plus Building AI for those who want the algorithms.
MinnaLearn and the University of Helsinki Nov 2026
Open elementsofai.com →A self-learning programme in two parts, AI Aware and AI Appreciate, that takes about four hours and is available in 11 Indian languages, with badges on completion.
Digital India, CBSE and Intel Nov 2026
Open ai-for-all.in →Google's student offer as shown in India: a student plan at no cost for 1 year, with higher limits, 400 GB of storage and video generation; redeem by 31 December 2026, after which it renews as Google AI Plus at Rs 399 a month unless cancelled.
Google Nov 2026
Open gemini.google →How to turn on study mode, which teaches step by step instead of handing over the answer, on any plan including Free.
OpenAI Help Center Nov 2026
Open help.openai.com →
