The best free AI courses and certificates for upskilling in 2026 - and I've tried them all

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ZDNET's key takeaways

• You can learn essential AI skills for free.
• Online courses make mastering generative AI easy.
• Building your AI knowledge now can boost your career.

Generative AI is an astonishing technology that's not only here to stay but promises to impact all sectors of work and business. It's already made unprecedented inroads into our daily lives.

We all have a lot to learn about it. Spewing out a few prompts to ChatGPT may be easy, but before you can turn all these new capabilities into productive tools, you need to grow your skills. Fortunately, there is a wide range of classes that can help.

Also: I'm an AI tools expert, and these are the 4 I pay for now (plus 2 I'm eyeing)

Many companies and schools will ...