Whether you want to improve your current skills or transition into one of the many new jobs being created thanks to AI, understanding how to use generative AI can benefit just about anyone.
Last year, I published a list of the best free resources I’ve found online for developing practical AI skills. This time, I’ve put together a list of paid courses for those ready to make an investment in upskilling or reskilling themselves. These cover both full academic courses and shorter, bite-size beginner and refresher courses.
Some of these courses might offer free trials or non-certified access to the curriculum, and some sites run promotional offers, so look around and choose carefully. Whichever you go for, though, it’s likely to be a worthwhile investment that will set you up for the future of work.
The Basics
Explore the foundational elements of generative AI, including its core concepts, ethical considerations, and practical applications for career enhancement.
· Generative AI Fundamentals Specialization – IBM (Coursera): A beginner-level course introducing basic concepts, ethical concerns, and prompt engineering, alongside practical advice on spotting opportunities to use it in a career or business.
· Introduction to Generative AI – University of Colorado, Boulder (Coursera): This course covers language as well as image generation, delving into theory and mathematics as well as practical uses.
· Generative AI Primer – Vanderbilt University (Coursera): Super-snappy one-hour course introducing the concept of using generative AI to augment our human skills, creativity and critical thinking abilities.
· Generative AI with Google – in28Minutes (Udemy) is a bite-sized introduction to Google’s ecosystem of generative AI tools and models, including Bard and PaLM, and using them in the Google cloud.
· Generative AI for Beginners – Aakriti E-Learning (Udemy): One of Udemy’s best-selling generative AI courses is this three-hour certified course covering business use cases and key technical principles such as LLMs and fine-tuning.
Prompt Engineering
Master the art of effective prompt crafting to harness generative AI’s full potential as a personal assistant.
· Introduction to Prompt Engineering Lean Prompting: Learn how to craft prompts that get the outcome you want as practical steps to using generative AI as a personal assistant.
· Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT – Vanderbilt University (Coursera): Learn a skill that’s forecast to be one of the most in-demand of the AI era.
· The Complete Prompt Engineering Bootcamp – Mike Taylor and James Phoenix (Udemy): Everything that you need to become an expert prompter, including using it to create computer code and applications.
· ChatGPT Prompt Engineering Certification – The Knowledge Academy: Advanced training on all aspects of prompt engineering, including adversarial prompt engineering and data processing.
Business-Focused
Uncover how generative AI is transforming businesses and learn to spot and leverage opportunities within your organization.
· Generative AI Implications and Opportunities for Business RMIT University (Class Central): Understand how generative AI is used by businesses today, and identify opportunities to use it in your own organization.
· Generative AI Business Sprint – MIT Management: 30-day course covering business process automation, using generative AI to drive organizational efficiency, and developing new business opportunities.
· AI Applications for Growth – Northwestern, Kellog School of Technology (Emeritus): This course two-month course offers a thorough grounding in AI business use cases but has a particular focus on empowering organizations through generative AI and developing future-ready skills.
· Generative AI Startup Strategy Showcase – Sramana Mitra (Udemy): Innovative course aiming to impart the skills and knowledge needed to spot AI startup opportunities, build a team, raise funds and launch a product or service onto the market.
Technical
Targeted courses for developers to integrate generative AI into their skill sets and projects.
· Generative AI for Software Developers – IBM (Coursera): Short course from IBM focusing on hands-on skills for developers wanting to add generative AI to their resume.
· Generative Adversarial Networks – DeepLearning.ai (Coursera): Learn to build GANs, one of the fundamental generative AI technologies.
· How Diffusion Models Work – DeepLearning.ai (Coursera): A thorough technical grounding in the fascinating science behind this powerful generative technology, as well as how to build your own.
· Large Language Models – databricks (edX): Understand the technical details of transformer models like GPT-4, and the technology powering ChatGPT and other language AIs.
· Design a Feminist Chatbot – Creative Computing Institute (FutureLearn): Focuses on the ethical challenges as well as technical skills that are needed to ensure that generative AI chatbots don’t propagate harmful gender stereotypes.
· Fine-Tuning Large Language Models – DeepLearning.ai (Coursera): Learn the technical skills needed to train LLMs using your own data, neural nets and weighting.
Specialist
For professionals looking to integrate generative AI into their work.
· ChatGPT for Educators – Georgia Tech (edX): Introduction to using ChatGPT (and other tools) in the classroom, including teaching how to use it, and using it to teach other subjects.
· Generative AI in Higher Education – King College London (FutureLearn): Learn about the capabilities and challenges around putting generative AI technologies to use in university, college and professional education environments.
· Generative Art and Computational Creativity – Simon Fraser University (Kadenze): It covers the history of the interaction between generative technology and creativity as well as practical instructions as well as addresses the philosophical issues around AI and creativity.
· Harnessing AI in Marketing and Communication – University of Adelaide (FutureLearn): Put generative AI to use in content creation, marketing automation, project planning and analytics.
· Generative AI for Data Scientists – IBM (Coursera): Specialization aimed at those with an understanding of data and analytics who want to learn to put generative AI to use in their field of work.
· Certification in Generative AI in Cybersecurity – Global Skills Development Council: GSDC offers this specialization program for cybersecurity professionals aiming to learn about the threats and opportunities created by the emergence of generative AI.
Embarking on any of these courses not only promises to elevate your understanding and skills in generative AI but also positions you at the forefront of technological innovation, ready to shape the future.
