Paths for every level
Organised by how much setup you're signing up for: no code means open a website and go, intermediate means some local setup, advanced means you're in deep. Costs are labelled honestly; the curricula stay free-first.
Free playlists and Microsoft Learn paths for AI inside the Office apps most workplaces already run.
Guides to Google AI Studio, NotebookLM, and Gemini across Workspace — the AI woven through Search, Docs, and Gmail.
Anthropic's models and tools — the Claude apps, Claude Code, building with the API, and the design and safety behind them.
Suggested curricula
Pick the one that matches where you are. Durations are honest estimates, not marketing.
Get productive with chatbots, week one no code
Anyone — no code, no setup · ~1 week at 1 hr/day
From "I've heard of ChatGPT" to using AI competently for real daily work. The skill is delegation: knowing what to hand over and how to check it.
- Pick two assistants and make accounts — one general (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) + one for research (Perplexity); comparing two teaches more than mastering one
- Do real tasks, not demos — rewrite an email, summarise a contract, plan a trip, debug a spreadsheet formula — your actual work, every day
- Anthropic prompt engineering guide — read once, then apply: give context, show examples, ask for structure
- Learn the failure modes — hallucination, stale knowledge, confident nonsense — the glossary's "Using LLMs" section is your field guide
- Elements of AI, both parts — finish the week with real mental models under the habits
Run your own AI: personal chatbot setup intermediate
Comfortable installing apps and following setup guides · ~2 weekends
Your own assistant, answering you on Telegram or Discord, powered by whatever model you choose — on your API budget or your own hardware. Private, unrestricted, and yours.
- Get one key for every model: OpenRouter — sign up, add a few dollars of credit; now you can call any model without an account per provider
- Or go fully local: Ollama or LM Studio — if you have the hardware (see the hardware guide), run models on your own machine for free and private
- Pick a model with personality: Hermes 4 — neutral and steerable — a good default personal assistant; swap freely later
- Deploy OpenClaw — the self-hosted assistant that connects your model to Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp and more — follow its quickstart
- Create your bot on the platform — Telegram: message @BotFather for a token. Discord: make an app in the developer portal. Paste the token into OpenClaw
AI-assisted coding: build without a CS degree advanced
Curious, patient, willing to break things · ~2–3 months of evenings
You don't need to memorise syntax anymore — you need the vocabulary to ask for what you want and the judgement to check it. This is the path from "I can't code" to shipping a real app with an AI pair.
- Set up an AI IDE and connect your subscription — Cursor or Google Antigravity; sign in, point it at an empty folder, and start a conversation
- Learn the lingo, not the syntax — variable, function, API, endpoint, repo, deploy — you can build anything if you know the words to ask for it
- Understand the pieces — frontend (what users see) vs backend (server + logic) vs database (where data lives) vs hosting (where it runs)
- Build one tiny app end to end — a todo list, a personal dashboard — start absurdly small, get it running online, then add one feature at a time
- Go deeper when you hit a wall — The Odin Project or CS50 for the fundamentals the AI assumes you know; you'll learn faster now that you have context
Resource shelves
Chatbots & assistants — start using AI today no code 8
The most popular hosted assistants. Nothing to install: open the site, type, get work done. Every one of these has a meaningful free way in unless marked otherwise.
Foundations — understand what you're using no code 4
No programming required. These build correct mental models — the difference between using AI and being used by it.
Run your own AI — personal chatbots & local models intermediate 7
Stop renting someone else's assistant and run your own — on your hardware or your own API budget, answering you on the apps you already use. Some setup required, but far less than it used to be.
AI code editors & coding agents intermediate 6
Install an editor or CLI, connect an account, and AI stops answering questions and starts doing the work with you — reading your code, editing files, running commands.
Learn to build with AI — the lingo & your first app intermediate 5
You can build almost anything if you know what to ask for. These teach the vocabulary and the moving parts — frontend vs backend, databases, APIs, hosting — so the AI in the editor above becomes a force multiplier instead of a mystery.
Databases intermediate 5
Every AI application sits on one. SQLite for local work, Postgres when it grows up, pgvector when RAG arrives.
Hardware for local AI intermediate 5
Why run your own models at all? Privacy, no rate limits, offline access, and full control. This is what you actually need to do it — plus the embeddings and classifiers that make local AI useful beyond chat. For the full GPU breakdown, see the hardware guide linked below.
Advanced & research — individual projects advanced 6
For when you want to build something new rather than use something built: fine-tuning your own models, following current research, and understanding the machinery underneath — including the math behind the image generators on the AI Art page. Fair warning, though: most problems that feel like they need fine-tuning are solved better by prompting or RAG. Know how and why before you spend a GPU-day.
How to use this page
The field moves fast but the fundamentals don't. Start at your tier and finish things — the classic failure mode is collecting resources instead of completing one. Generative image and video tools live on the AI Art page; the theory behind them is here under Advanced.