There are a lot of AI courses now — free ones, paid ones, and some very expensive ones. What usually stalls an owner is not the price. It is not knowing which kind they need: to understand it, or to get it installed. Those are two different jobs and two different kinds of course.
This page separates the two, then gives you four questions to ask about any course you're considering — including ours.
Understand-it courses tell you what AI is, what it can do and how to ask better. You come away able to explain it at dinner and with a sense of where to point it. There is a lot of free material of this kind and much of it is good.
Install-it courses sit with you at your own machine while you get one specific job running — running properly, producing something, and handable to a staff member afterwards. Their value is not in how well they explain. It is in whether the step on the page matches the step on your screen.
Most owners are short of the second kind. But if you have never done the first, start there and don't spend money yet.
Google runs a whole block of AI training aimed at small businesses. Its official page states that Make AI Work for You can be watched at no cost on their YouTube channel, and that it is for anyone eager to grow their careers or business and looking to get more done, faster. The same page carries AI Essentials and a professional certificate, which the page states is free for eligible US small businesses.
Fair assessment: that is a solid grounding. If your current question is "what can this actually do", the free material answers it and you should go and use it before paying anyone. What it is not built to do is sit with you while you open your own Mac, set the permission mode and point it at your own customer emails. One thing to check first: that certificate's free eligibility has conditions and a country requirement, so owners in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Singapore or Malaysia should read them before enrolling.
The AI Academy is the install-it kind: a ladder of 40 lessons in Chinese, English and Vietnamese, running from install, foundation and daily work through money, customers, storefront and automation to the dashboard and what's new. Two routes side by side — Claude Code and Codex (ChatGPT), on Mac and Windows; the install lesson has all four routes recorded on real machines.
The honest status, so nobody finds out after paying: Build 39 (install), Build 40 (win one) and Build 16 (quotes) are the fully recorded sample lessons, with real screenshots, a practice pack, a reference output and a checker. The rest are currently the long-form prompt versions, being remade lesson by lesson to that same standard, with progress logged in the member area under "Latest updates".
There are no start dates and no scheduled class times. Access opens on payment and you set your own pace. Membership is US$349/quarter or US$999/year at one global price; one membership is a company licence covering the owner and the team, with no per-person charge. Enterprise work is from US$20,000/year. Two things are free: the daily Boss AI Brief and an industry check.
| Free public courses (e.g. Google) | The AI Academy | |
|---|---|---|
| Question it answers | What AI is, what it can do, how to ask better | How to get this job installed on this machine of mine |
| Format | Video lessons, openly available | Tool-specific written steps, one card per step, with real screenshots |
| What you hold at the end | Concepts and technique | An installed AI and one finished piece of work you would sign off |
| Price | The official page states it is free to watch; the professional certificate is free for eligible US small businesses | US$349/quarter or US$999/year, one membership per company |
| Who it suits | Anyone starting out who wants to understand it at no cost | An owner who has decided to install and hand over a specific job |
A course can get the machine installed, the rules written and the first output produced. It cannot teach judgement: whether to take the job, what to charge, whether to keep that employee. Those stay with the owner, and they are the last things you should outsource.
One more thing: no course should leave you feeling that you're falling behind if you don't finish it. The tools keep changing; the point of a ladder is that you can always step up one rung from wherever you are, not that you're behind on homework. The free check suggests which rung to enter at, or you can just read the full lesson catalogue.
Yes. Google's official page states that Make AI Work for You can be watched at no cost on their YouTube channel, and the same page carries AI Essentials and a professional certificate that is free for eligible US small businesses. If you want to understand AI at no cost, start there.
It solves a different problem: getting one job installed on your own machine, in the tool you actually use, until it produces something. The format is written step cards with real screenshots, kept up to date as the tools change. Free first, paid later is a perfectly sensible order.
US$349 a quarter or US$999 a year at one global price. One membership is a company licence covering the owner and the team with no per-person charge. Enterprise work starts from US$20,000/year. The daily Boss AI Brief and the industry check are free.
No. Each step is clicking a button, pasting a prompt and checking the screen matches. The install lesson prints the English button text and where each button sits, on all four routes.
No start dates and no scheduled class times. Access opens on payment, you set your own pace, and content is updated as the tools change — progress is logged in the member area under Latest updates.
Sources (checked 2026-09-07):Google: AI training for small businesses · Claude Code desktop quickstart · ChatGPT desktop app (official docs) · ChatGPT and Codex pricing
Last checked: 2026-09-07