AI For Beginners

AI skills are quickly becoming an essential job requirement in almost every role. And you don't need to be technical to learn them. This step-by-step path takes you from complete beginner to confident AI user, so you can work faster, solve real problems, and become the go-to AI person on your team. No experience required.

Your career path

Complete this path and you'll:

Understand how generative AI and large language models (LLMs) work (and where they can go wrong)
Get better answers on the first try by writing prompts with proven frameworks instead of guessing
Use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and any other LLM model with confidence
Stop wasting time on the wrong tool by knowing which AI model and tool fits which task
Complete your current daily tasks faster by using AI to research, write, analyze, brainstorm and solve problems
Create reusable prompts and AI workflows for tasks you perform regularly
Catch AI's mistakes before they become your mistakes by learning to spot answers that are wrong, biased, or made up
Use AI at work without the risk by learning how to keep private and confidential information safe
Get hours back in your week by automating repetitive work and building practical AI-powered workflows
Let AI handle the busywork for you by building AI assistants and agents that can complete complex, multi-step tasks
Become the go-to AI person on your team that others turn to for help

Course

Beginner

2 Hours ·35 Lessons Introduction to Prompt Engineering

Learn prompt engineering from the ground up, including what it is, why it's important, and start exploring your own LLMs including ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, multimodal AI, and LLM tools by building your own video game.

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Course

Beginner

2 Hours ·18 Lessons How LLMs Work

See what’s really happening inside large language models. Explore tokens, transformers, training, model behavior, and AI concepts through visual exercises and hands-on challenges.

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Course

Beginner

4.5 Hours ·58 Lessons Prompt Engineering Fundamentals

Learn the fundamentals of working with AI, including system messages, context windows, personas, zero-shot and few-shot prompting, chain-of-thought techniques, output formatting, and practical AI workflows.

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Course

Beginner

3 Hours ·20 Lessons The Dark Side of AI: Jailbreaking, Injections, Hallucinations + more

Explore the darker side of AI, from jailbreaks and prompt injections to data leaks, poisoning, toxicity, hallucinations, guardrails, and the tools used to evaluate model safety.

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Course

Beginner

0.5 Hours ·7 Lessons LLM Hyperparameters

Learn how LLM hyperparameters shape model output. Explore temperature, Top P, frequency and presence penalties, stop sequences, and technical skills for more controlled AI responses.

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Course

Beginner

2 Hours ·18 Lessons ChatGPT Deep Dive: Multi-Modality, Tools, Architecture + more

Go under the hood and understand the harness built around modern LLMs like ChatGPT. Explore multimodality, memory, instruction hierarchy, reasoning models, tools, function calling, and how these systems actually work.

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Course

Beginner

1.5 Hours ·11 Lessons Open Source Models

Explore open source and local AI models. Work with LM Studio, set up your own models, compare model performance, design useful evaluation prompts, and investigate AI guardrails through hands-on exercises.

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Course

Beginner

5 Hours ·25 Lessons Advanced Prompting Techniques

Learn how to shape the way LLMs reason, respond, and solve problems. You'll dive into research papers and experiment with prompt patterns like ReAct and Tree of Thoughts and discover how to harness the power of AI.

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Course

Beginner

5 Hours ·38 Lessons Reasoning Models: The Amazing and Terrifying New Era of AI Thinking

Explore AI reasoning models from the inside out by diving into the research behind them. Learn how reasoning models think and how reinforcement learning, test-time compute + more shape their (sometimes scary!) behavior.

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Course

Beginner

6.5 Hours ·38 Lessons Applied Prompt Engineering: Prompt Testing & Model Benchmarks

Take things to the next level and build real-world skills by learning to test prompts, build your own custom benchmarks, compare models, and evaluate outputs with human, code, and AI judges using practical workflows.

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Course

Beginner

1.5 Hours ·38 Lessons AI Research & The Quest for Artificial General Intelligence

Explore the ideas shaping the race toward AGI, including mechanistic interpretability, the AI scaling laws, compute trends, dataset scaling, and the future of advanced AI.

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Course · optional for you

Beginner

3.5 Hours ·25 Lessons ChatGPT for Excel

Become an AI freak in the (Excel) sheets! Unlock the power of ChatGPT to solve Excel challenges, sharpen your AI prompting skills, and get a hands-on intro to the world of Generative AI.

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Course

Beginner

3 Hours ·28 Lessons Build AI Agents with n8n

Launch AI automations fast with n8n. Learn no-code workflows, triggers, and nodes, plus integrations with OpenAI, Google Calendar, Gmail, Notion, Reddit, Telegram, and more. Build AI agent systems - no coding required!

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Course · optional for you

Intermediate

3 Hours ·28 Lessons Local AI Revolution: Ollama and OpenClaw

Take full control of your AI by building a complete self-hosted stack from scratch using Ollama and OpenClaw. Learn how to serve open models, rent GPUs, and deploy autonomous AI agents that work on your terms.

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Course

Intermediate

3 Hours ·29 Lessons Build AI Agents with CrewAI

Build intelligent, collaborative AI agents with CrewAI. Learn to orchestrate multi-agent workflows using LLMs, tools, and real-world task delegation.

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Course

Intermediate

3.5 Hours ·30 Lessons Build AI Agents with AWS

Learn to build and deploy AI Agents with AWS! Learn to orchestrate AI agents using LLMs, AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and S3 to build a production-ready AI Travel Agent.

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Still have questions?

Is this AI Learning Path suitable for complete beginners?

Yes. The AI for Beginners Learning Path starts with the fundamentals and assumes no previous experience with AI and no previous knowledge of coding, math, or anything else, other than how to turn on your computer and hit play on the first lesson!

Can I learn AI without coding, math, or a technical background?

Yes! You do not need any prior coding, math, or technical knowledge to follow this path. Some courses go deeper into technical topics for students who want to take their skills even further but even those teach you everything from zero.

Can this Career Path help me if I don’t work in tech?

Definitely! We've specifically created the courses in this path to apply to any role. You'll be able to apply the skills you learn to marketing, sales, operations, finance, HR, management, education, research, entrepreneurship, software development and many other fields.

Is this for changing careers or using AI in my current role?

The purpose of this path is to make you better and more confident at using AI in any role. At this point, there are very few "AI" specific jobs, but we strongly believe that almost every role is going to require fundamental knowledge of AI tools and skills, just like at one point virtually every role required learning how to use a fancy piece of new software called "Microsoft Word". The sooner and better you are at using AI, the more successful you'll be and less likely to be replaced.

Why learn AI skills?

AI skills are becoming the new fundamental skills for every single job.

As we're writing this, AI is being implemented into all facets of the workplace and our lives, and AI models are improving every week.

The desire for companies to take advantage of this revolutionary technology is growing along with it.

AI knowledge and skills are starting to appear in the necessary or desired qualifications for jobs more and more every day. Just as basic Excel and Word skills used to be the baseline requirements for jobs, AI is becoming a baseline requirement.

What AI skills should a beginner learn first?

It's important to learn the fundamentals first. That means learning how generative AI and large language models work, how to write effective prompts, how to evaluate outputs, how to choose the right model, and how to apply AI safely to real tasks.

Which AI tools and models will I learn to use?

New models are coming out every week. But that's no problem.

This path is designed to not only teach you to use the latest models from the biggest companies such as OpenAI, Claude, and Gemini, along with open-source models for increased privacy and reduced costs. But since the industry is changing so fast, we also focus teaching you the fundamental skills to be able to adapt to learning and using new models and tools as they come out, rather than just how a specific model works.

We're also constantly updating the courses within this path and adding new ones as the industry evolves.

Does this Learning Path teach more than prompt engineering?

Yes. Prompt engineering is really just a buzz word, but we still use it because it's so widely recognized in the general population. By the end of this path, you'll be more "AI Fluent" than 99% of the population and be ready to tackle any problem you can think of using AI.

What will I be able to do after completing this AI Learning Path?

This list could go on and on but here are a few examples of what you'll be able to do:

Produce better AI outputs
Research and summarize information
Draft and improve work
Analyze ideas or information
Create repeatable workflows
Evaluate outputs rather than blindly trusting them
Build and control AI agents
Help colleagues use AI more effectively

Most people are using ChatGPT or a similar LLM model as a basic chat bot (ie: help me plan a trip, give me some recipe ideas, etc.). That's a great use case. But it barely scratches the surface of what's possible to transform the way you work. That's what we'll show you how to do.

What’s the ZTM Discord community and how can it help me?

The ZTM Discord is our exclusive online community for ZTM students, alumni, TAs and instructors.

How it helps you, short version: Increase the chances that ZTM students achieve their current goals and help them continue to grow throughout their career.

Longer version: Learning alone is hard. We've all been there. We've all tried to learn new skills and struggled. It can be frustrating, daunting, and just plain challenging, especially if you're trying to change careers.

We feel strongly that the Zero To Mastery Discord community is an essential part of the learning experience and greatly increases the chances for students to achieve their goals.

It's crazy to think that Colleges and Coding Bootcamps charge you tens of thousands of dollars to provide you with this type of experience. It doesn't have to be that way!

In fact, ~20% of ZTM students are also enrolled at a College or in-person Coding Bootcamp but feel like they just aren't getting all of the skills and support they need. But with ZTM, they do.

Within the Zero To Mastery Discord community, you can:

Connect with other Developers, Engineers, Data Scientists, Designers
Form study groups and complete ZTM Career Paths and Courses together
Ask questions and get advice from other people at your same level as well as more experienced professionals
Get feedback on projects
Meet other students around the world (and likely even someone from your hometown!)
Learn how to answer questions and help other students which will accelerate your own learning
Get help from others with questions and exercises
Work on coding challenges and real-world open-source projects with other students

It’s pretty awesome to see many ZTM alumni also active every single day, continuing to engage with the community, give back, and level up their own skills and career.

Is this AI Learning Path suitable for complete beginners?

How is this different from free AI tutorials or shorter AI courses?

It's true that most other learning platforms out there covering the bare minimum basics, but very few go much deeper. Most free tutorials also aren't updated (or in the case of Youtube videos can't be updated) which is a huge problem given how fast the industry is evolving.

This path gives you:

A sequenced learning roadmap with a clear progression from fundamentals to more advanced applications rarely covered in other AI courses or platforms
In-depth instruction rather than disconnected tips or random prompts to memorize
Hands-on exercises and projects
Regular updates (key!!!)
Direct access to ZTM's AI instructors, TAs and the community of 1,000s of fellow learners

How long does it take to complete this path and can I complete it while working full-time?

It's 100% self-paced learning so everyone is different. The two biggest variables are the number of hours per week you're dedicating to completing the steps and courses and your current experience level.

If you spend 5-10 hours a week, you should be able to complete the path in ~2 months.

Do I need paid subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or other AI tools?

No you don't need any paid subscriptions. While some courses will show you and utilize features from paid AI subscriptions, you will be able to learn everything without a paid AI subscription and will often be provided with alternative free options as well.

How is the curriculum kept up to date as AI changes?

Every course in this path is being continually updated by our Instructor team. Sometimes there are small updates based on student feedback and reviews and other times, there are more major updates and additions as new tools and techniques come out.

But more importantly, we're focused on teaching you the fundamental knowledge and skills so that you can analyze and understand everything yourself as new models, tools, and techniques are released.

What projects and learning support are included?

There are over 20 different projects you'll build as part of the courses in this path and we're constantly adding new ones as well. We're even more excited to see what project YOU build and share in the ZTM community.

Speaking of which... one of the best parts about becoming a ZTM member or purchasing lifetime access to this Career Path is that you'll get access to the ZTM Discord community where you can ask questions 24/7 and learn alongside students, alumni, TAs and our instructors.

It's not only a great place to get support but also a great community of people always helping each other out and sharing cool ideas, tips, tricks, and even their own projects.

What happens if I join and decide it isn’t right for me?

Well, first of all, we'll be very sad. But we're reasonable people so we provide a no questions asked 30-day money back guarantee. Just email support within 30 days of purchasing and they'll provide you a refund. So stop procrasting, you've got nothing to lose!

Learn the skills to stand out and get hired. In the age of AI.

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Need a Team License?

With a team license, you can buy a number of spots to allocate to employees.

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Guided career paths (beginner to job-ready)

500,000+ member community

Live career coaching sessions with mentors

Completion certificates for every course

Personalized ZTM Passport

Private LinkedIn networking group

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AI For Beginners

2 Months

Your career path

Complete this path and you'll:

See less career path

What ZTM students are saying

Meet your instructors

Scott Kerr

Andrei Neagoie

Diogo Resende

Andrei Dumitrescu

Still have questions?

Is this AI Learning Path suitable for complete beginners?

Can I learn AI without coding, math, or a technical background?

Can this Career Path help me if I don’t work in tech?

Is this for changing careers or using AI in my current role?

Why learn AI skills?

What AI skills should a beginner learn first?

Which AI tools and models will I learn to use?

Does this Learning Path teach more than prompt engineering?

What will I be able to do after completing this AI Learning Path?

What’s the ZTM Discord community and how can it help me?

Is this AI Learning Path suitable for complete beginners?

How is this different from free AI tutorials or shorter AI courses?

How long does it take to complete this path and can I complete it while working full-time?

Do I need paid subscriptions to ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or other AI tools?

How is the curriculum kept up to date as AI changes?

What projects and learning support are included?

What happens if I join and decide it isn’t right for me?

Learn the skills to stand out and get hired. In the age of AI.

Only pay once, ever