Artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly at the forefront of technological development. An exploding field growing ever-larger with recent developments in deep learning, AI has the potential to alter society as profoundly as the development of the assembly line during the Industrial Revolution. Already, AI has made its way into our daily life in the form of virtual assistants like Siri, recommendation algorithms on Facebook, predictive web searches in Google, and email filters in Gmail. Moving forward, AI will only be more present — self-driving cars, fully functional robots, and other technologies you might not even conceive of.

Okay, so AI is important, but what is it? If you’ve ever wanted to learn about artificial intelligence — what it is, how it works, and how to build your own — we’ve put together a list of free and affordable online courses on AI, for programmers and non-techies alike. Whether you want to learn to develop sophisticated deep learning algorithms using Python, or want to know what “deep learning” even means, we’ve got a course for you.

Beginner Courses on Artificial Intelligence

1. AI for Everyone

If you are not a computer scientist or programmer and are interested in AI, but not interested in learning to program for machine learning, this is the course for you. Coursera’s “AI for Everyone” is a largely non-technical course, focused primarily on explaining the theory, terminology, and application of AI technologies rather than hard AI development skills. The course, which is categorized under business, rather than programming or computer science, also partially focuses on the integration of AI technologies into businesses. You’ll learn about basic AI concepts, what AI can and cannot do, the ethics and future of AI, and how AI is being used in various sectors of the economy today. The course is a great choice for anyone who wants to know what it means when we discuss concepts like deep learning.

College credits: NO — Course Certificate only
Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Course Certificate
Financial aid or scholarship: YES
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: Approx. 9 hours (2-3 hours/week suggested)
Languages: English with subtitles in English, Arabic, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Spanish
Vendor: Coursera

Note: Prices for all courses listed in this article are true on the date of publishing, but are subject to change.

2. Artificial Intelligence A-Z™: Learn How to Build An AI

This course is designed for students who have worked with Python before, but have never studied AI. Instructors Hadelin de Ponteves and Kirill Eremenko, both of whom have a background in data science and machine learning, explain the theory behind AI and the fundamentals of reinforcement learning. In the implementation section, you’ll work with the PyTorch library to build a variety of AI projects, such as an AI capable of playing games and a virtual self-driving car.

College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
Price: $9.99 on sale ($199.99 regular price)
Financial aid or scholarships: NO
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 16 hours, 30 minutes
Languages: English with subtitles in English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Turkish
Vendor: Udemy

3. Demystifying Artificial Intelligence: Understanding Machine Learning

Taught by Christian Heilmann, a longtime web developer and currently a senior developer at Microsoft, this course is dedicated to understanding AI from a theoretical and interface perspective. The goal here is not to understand how to code an AI program — you won’t learn to build neural networks in Python, for example — rather, the course is intended to teach students of all educational and professional backgrounds (not just techies) about the concepts behind machine learning, deep learning, and AI more broadly. You’ll learn about various AI tools and services, such as AWS machine learning and Microsoft Azure’s AI platform, which you can use to incorporate into products or build AI interfaces. The course also includes a discussion about the ethical implications of AI and the relationship between AI and creativity.

College credits: NO — Certificate only
Price: One-month free trial and then $15 billed monthly OR $99 for annual Premium (billed annually) or $8.25 per month (billed monthly)
Financial aid or scholarships: YES
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 58 minutes
Languages: English
Vendor: Skillshare

Intermediate Courses on Artificial Intelligence

4. Artificial Intelligence Masterclass

This course teaches AI from scratch, but is best for students who experience with programming and have a basic familiarity with basic AI concepts. If you have never worked with AI before, instructors Hadelin de Ponteves and Kirill Eremenko have another course, “Artificial Intelligence A-Z™: Learn How to Build An AI,” that you may consider taking. The course begins with sections covering artificial and convolutional neural networks. As it progresses, you’ll learn about other types of AI models — variational autoencoders, recurrent neural networks, genetic algorithms, and more. Eventually, you’ll learn to put them all together to create a hybrid AI model capable of outperforming all of the individual models.

College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
Price: $9.99 on sale ($199.99 regular price)
Financial aid or scholarships: NO
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 12 hours
Languages: English with subtitles in English and Italian
Vendor: Udemy

5. Machine Learning, Data Science, and Deep Learning with Python

This course is focused on teaching AI from a practical standpoint. You will learn many of the concepts most commonly used in professional development settings and develop skills that employers in data science and deep learning systems development tend to look for in employees. It also teaches AI from scratch, so it is fitting for relative beginners. The course begins with a crash course on Python and some fundamental statistics and probability concepts that arise often in machine learning. As you progress through the course, you’ll learn and implement a variety of machine learning concepts and build a few projects, including a movie recommendation system, a spam detection system, and a search engine that uses Wikipedia data.

College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
Price: $9.99 on sale ($159.99 regular price)
Financial aid or scholarships: NO
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 13 hours
Languages: English with subtitles in English and Italian
Vendor: Udemy

Advanced Courses on Artificial Intelligence

6. Advanced AI: Deep Reinforcement Learning in Python

This Udemy course is based around deep reinforcement learning, a type of machine learning often used in robotics in which an agent learns to make decisions through practice. Deep reinforcement learning is at the forefront of AI, used in self-driving car technologies and AI algorithms capable of mastering strategy games such as chess and go. In this course, you’ll learn about some of the principal methods, concepts, and tools used in reinforcement learning, such as Markov decision processes, dynamic programming, Monte Carlo simulations, and temporal difference learning. You’ll learn to build reinforcement learning AIs using OpenAI Gym, a toolkit for developing reinforcement learning algorithms developed by tech pioneers Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Ilya Sutskever, and Greg Brockman.

College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
Price: $9.99 on sale ($179.99 regular price)
Financial aid or scholarships: NO
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 9 hours
Languages: English with subtitles in English, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Spanish
Vendor: Udemy

7. Artificial Intelligence: Reinforcement Learning in Python

Recommended for students who are familiar with calculus, probability, programming fundamentals, and the Python programming language, this course is focused on reinforcement learning, an increasingly common type of machine learning in which an algorithm learns by practice. In this course, you’ll learn the fundamental math and computer science concepts behind reinforcement learning — Markov decision processes, dynamic programming, Monte Carlo methods, and more.

College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
Price: $9.99 on sale ($179.99 regular price)
Financial aid or scholarships: NO
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 8 hours, 30 minutes
Languages: English with subtitles in English, Portuguese, and Spanish
Vendor: Udemy

8. Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning in Python

This course is based around one of the most important features in artificial intelligence technologies: natural language processing. Natural language processing refers to the ability of a computer system to not only recognize, but understand and interpret human speech. It is an increasingly important type of deep learning, commonly used in virtual assistants like the Google Home, Microsoft Cortana, and Amazon Alexa. This course will teach you all about natural language processing and recursive neural networks. You’ll learn about word2vec, the GloVe method, and more.

College credits: NO — Certificate of Completion only
Price: $9.99 on sale ($199.99 regular price)
Financial aid or scholarships: NO
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 12 hours, 54 minutes
Languages: English with subtitles in English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and Thai
Vendor: Udemy

Beginner Programs on Artificial Intelligence

9. AI Foundations for Everyone Specialization

IBM, one of the corporations at the forefront of AI development and research, designed this Coursera specialization as an introduction to AI concepts for students with no background in computer science. Students will learn some of the main principles behind AI and become familiar with concepts like machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks. Students will also work with IBM Watson, IBM’s AI services designed for businesses. Watson is designed to allow businesses and entrepreneurs with no tech background to easily implement AI and build smart applications to manage their data. In the final section, you’ll learn how to create chatbots without writing any code. This Specialization is ideal for students interested in business who are not necessarily interested in programming.

The 3 Courses:

Course 1: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Course 2: Getting Started with AI using IBM Watson

Course 3: Building AI Powered Chatbots Without Programming

College credits: NO — Specialization Certificate only
Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Specialization Certificate
Financial aid or scholarship: YES
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 1 month (14 hours/week suggested)
Languages: English with subtitles in English
Vendor: Coursera

10. AI Programming with Python

This AI Programming Nanodegree from Udacity is designed for students who have worked in a programming language before and are aware of fundamental programming concepts. The nanodegree is based on Python, a simple yet powerful language that is popular in AI programming. In five separate courses, you’ll learn the fundamental math and computer science concepts behind AI and neural networks, and you will work with some of the most popular AI programming and data management tools, including PyTorch, NumPy, Anaconda, Pandas, Jupyter Notebooks, and Matplotlib. By the end, you’ll be working on building your own image classifier, capable of identifying objects that appear in images.

College credits: NO
Price: $1,077 for three-month plan (paid upfront) or $399 per month
Financial aid or scholarships: YES
Mobile learning: NO
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 3 months (10 hours per week suggested)
Languages: English
Vendor: Udacity

Intermediate Programs on Artificial Intelligence

11. Deep Learning Specialization

The Deep Learning Specialization from Coursera, developed by deeplearning.ai, is a comprehensive introduction to AI theory and development. The specialization consists of five courses covering various types of neural networks, how to develop them, and how to apply them. Throughout, you’ll build a variety of projects that utilize machine learning, including flight simulators and neural style transfer algorithms. Lastly, you will learn about sequence models and how to build models for natural language, audio, and other sequence data. This is an excellent course for computer scientists, data scientists, and programmers who are looking for a comprehensive and relatively advanced course on AI development.

The 5 Courses:

Course 1: Neural Networks and Deep Learning

Course 2: Improving Deep Neural Networks: Hyperparameter tuning, Regularization, and Optimization

Course 3: Structuring Machine Learning Projects

Course 4: Convolutional Neural Networks

Course 5: Sequence Models

College credits: NO — Specialization Certificate only
Price: FREE to audit, but there’s a fee to earn and buy a Specialization Certificate
Financial aid or scholarship: YES
Mobile learning: YES
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 3 months (11 hours/week suggested)
Languages: English with subtitles in English, Arabic, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Turkish, and Ukranian
Vendor: Coursera

12. Deep Learning

This Udacity Nanodegree, designed in collaboration with Facebook’s AI department and Amazon Web Services (AWS), is an introduction to AI for intermediate-level Python programmers. Throughout the program, you will use PyTorch and Amazon SageMaker as well as development tools like Anaconda and Jupyter notebooks to build a variety of neural networks, including a convolutional neural network capable of detecting dog breeds, a recurrent neural network capable of building new TV scripts, and a pair of multi-layer neural networks capable of generating new, realistic faces based off images of celebrities. The program requires a familiarity with Python, but you don’t necessarily need any background in artificial intelligence or data science concepts.

College credits: NO
Price: $1,436 for four-month plan (paid upfront) or $399 per month
Financial aid or scholarships: YES
Mobile learning: NO
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 4 months (12 hours/week suggested)
Languages: English
Vendor: Udacity

Advanced Program on Artificial Intelligence

13. Expand Your Knowledge of Artificial Intelligence

This Udacity Nanodegree is an advanced-level program, designed with the help of Peter Norvig, a director of research at Google, and Sebastian Thrun, a former Google VP, a co-founder of Udacity, and the current CEO of the Kitty Hawk corporation. Students should have a strong grasp of mathematics concepts like linear algebra, calculus, probability, and statistics, as well as experience with object-oriented programming in Python and working with computer science algorithms. The course is built around four projects in which you will develop working AI agents, including a Sudoku solver, a forward planning agent, and an adversarial game-playing agent that performs at a higher level than humans.

College credits: NO
Price: $1,077 for three-month plan (paid upfront) or $399 per month
Financial aid or scholarships: YES
Mobile learning: NO
Self-paced learning: YES
Flexible deadlines: YES
Time needed for completion: 3 months (12-15 hours/week suggested)
Languages: English
Vendor: Udacity

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Best Online Classes and Programs for Artificial Intelligence