AI ToolsACADEMY

THE LEARNING LIBRARY

Courses and lessons

Start with the foundations, explore a tool you already use, or choose a focused short course. The full curriculum is free.

THE COMPLETE CURRICULUM

The main curriculum

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EXPLORE A TOPIC IN DEPTH

Short courses

COURSE GUIDE

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Explore model internals, creative production and accessible communication. Go deeper into retrieval, agents, evaluation, local inference and specialist AI methods. Each specialist course includes worked examples, exercises, a scored knowledge check and a Word workbook.

Foundation courses need no technical background. Intermediate courses assume some practice. Advanced courses explain design and evaluation decisions; you can complete the written exercises without installing software.

15 courses · 95 lessons in this selection

Workplace essentialsFoundation

Prove It

Check AI answers before you rely on them. Practise five checks, inspect original sources and leave a useful verification record.

Anyone whose work other people rely on

Explore 12 lesson topics
  1. A fluent answer is not evidence
  2. Where it fails most
  3. The confirmation trap
  4. Checks one and two: specifics and sources
  5. Checks three and four: the premise and the counter-case
  6. Check five: the second opinion
  7. Ask for sources the right way
  8. Spotting the fake
  9. Working from sources, not toward them
  10. Low, medium, high
  11. The trail
  12. When you find it wrong
12 lessons · 127 min · FreeOpen course
Workplace essentialsFoundation

The AI-Safe Desk

Decide what information you can use with an AI tool at work. Build a practical rulebook around approved accounts, data and review.

Anyone using AI tools at work in the UK

Explore 11 lesson topics
  1. The four things a tool can do with your text
  2. Consumer, business, internal: three different tools with the same name
  3. The two-second question
  4. Green: public and general
  5. Amber: personal or commercial, but redactable
  6. Red and black: never, and never without a policy
  7. Redaction that keeps the meaning
  8. The settings that matter
  9. Match the tool to the band
  10. Writing the page
  11. Showing it, and keeping it alive
11 lessons · 122 min · FreeOpen course
Workplace essentialsFoundation

The Team Brain

Build a shared assistant for repeated team questions, with owned sources, useful tests and a clear route to a person.

Team leads, EAs, office and operations managers

Explore 12 lesson topics
  1. Two weeks of tallying
  2. Sort the list
  3. What good looks like
  4. Find and audit what exists
  5. Write down what only you know
  6. Structure for a machine
  7. Choose the tool you already have
  8. Instructions that keep it honest
  9. Test against the tally
  10. The monthly ten minutes
  11. The feedback loop
  12. Make it the team's
12 lessons · 126 min · FreeOpen course
FoundationsFoundation

Inside language models

Understand tokens, context, embeddings and model adaptation through small experiments.

No technical background needed.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Tokens, spelling and the price of long inputs
  2. Context windows and forgotten instructions
  3. Embeddings: similar does not mean equivalent
  4. Sampling and repeatability
  5. Prompting, retrieval and fine-tuning
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
PromptingFoundation

Instruction design and structured outputs

Build testable instructions, examples and output contracts without relying on magic wording.

Comfortable writing a simple AI request.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Turn a vague request into an acceptance test
  2. Few-shot examples and counterexamples
  3. Structured output is only the first check
  4. Decompose a task without multiplying mistakes
  5. Version prompts and keep a regression set
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
DataIntermediate

Data and measurement for AI

Explore missingness, leakage, class imbalance, synthetic data and causal claims.

Basic percentages; no coding required.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Missing data is a question, not a zero
  2. Data leakage and tomorrow’s information
  3. Accuracy, precision and recall
  4. Synthetic data and circular evidence
  5. Before-and-after is not automatically causation
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
RetrievalAdvanced

Retrieval engineering: beyond document chat

Investigate chunk boundaries, hybrid search, reranking and evidence tracing in RAG systems.

Read Inside language models first; understand basic document search.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Chunk boundaries and orphaned exceptions
  2. Metadata filters and permission boundaries
  3. Hybrid search for names, codes and meaning
  4. Reranking and retrieval recall
  5. Claim-level grounding and citation checks
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
AutomationAdvanced

Agents, tools and controlled automation

Explore tool contracts, MCP, prompt injection, retries and approval boundaries.

Complete Instruction design; understand inputs and outputs in a workflow.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Workflow or agent: choose the control you need
  2. Tool contracts and MCP boundaries
  3. Prompt injection in retrieved material
  4. Retries, idempotency and duplicate actions
  5. Approval gates, logs and rollback
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
CodingIntermediate

AI-assisted coding and maintenance

Use specifications, tests, debugging and dependency review to make AI coding work inspectable.

Able to read simple code; exercises can be completed as design reviews.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Specify behaviour before generating code
  2. Give the assistant a repository map
  3. Test the bug, not the implementation
  4. Debug with a minimal reproduction
  5. Dependencies, diffs and reproducible handover
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
MultimodalIntermediate

Multimodal AI: documents, images and sound

Learn to inspect OCR, charts, transcripts, video summaries and cross-modal contradictions.

Comfortable checking a text answer against a source.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. OCR and reading order
  2. Charts: axes, units and visual persuasion
  3. Transcription, speakers and uncertain words
  4. Video sampling and missing moments
  5. Cross-modal contradictions and evidence priority
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
CreativeFoundation

Creative AI production and art direction

Plan visual briefs, reference consistency, local edits, storyboards and asset handovers.

No design software required for the planning exercises.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Write an art direction brief
  2. Reference consistency and controlled variation
  3. Inpainting and local edits
  4. Storyboards and continuity
  5. Asset provenance and publication review
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
EvaluationAdvanced

Evaluation, red teaming and uncertainty

Build reference sets, calibrated rubrics, adversarial cases and useful release decisions.

Understand basic percentages and the distinction between sources and claims.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Golden sets and test contamination
  2. Rubrics and disagreement between reviewers
  3. Pairwise comparisons and order effects
  4. Adversarial tests and subgroup failures
  5. Uncertainty, abstention and release decisions
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
Local AIAdvanced

Local models and inference engineering

Understand quantisation, KV caches, latency, adapters and local deployment boundaries.

Complete Inside language models; basic familiarity with computer memory.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Local inference and the real privacy boundary
  2. Quantisation and memory estimates
  3. KV caches and long-context memory
  4. Latency, throughput and the waiting user
  5. Adapters, fine-tuning and evaluation debt
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
AccessibilityFoundation

Inclusive language and accessible AI outputs

Explore plain language, alt text, multilingual review, code-switching and assistive workflows.

No technical background needed.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Plain language without losing the condition
  2. Alt text depends on purpose
  3. Translation, terminology and back-translation
  4. Code-switching, dialect and intent
  5. Assistive workflows and user control
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook
SpecialistAdvanced

Specialist AI: forecasting, graphs and active learning

Explore niche AI patterns through forecasting, anomaly detection, graphs, active learning and scientific evidence.

Complete Data and measurement; no specialist software required for the exercises.

Explore 5 lesson topics
  1. Time-series forecasting and temporal leakage
  2. Anomaly detection and the alert burden
  3. Knowledge graphs and entity resolution
  4. Active learning and selective labelling
  5. Scientific claims, benchmarks and transfer
5 lessons · 95 min · FreeOpen course
Download Word workbook

Downloads and reference guides

Find quick-reference cheat sheets, a free workbook and practical guides.