Which AI course should designers take first?

Start at your own level, then choose a course written for designers if there is one at that level. This page lists 2 written for the work, then the general AI courses that fit any role.

Are these AI courses free?

Many are free, and each course is marked free or "check cost". Prices and free trials are set by the provider and change, so confirm on the provider's page before you enroll.

How do you decide a course's level and function?

We read each course's own description and place it on our three-level ladder and in the functions it is written for. Providers often use their own labels or none, so treat ours as guidance. Beginner needs no earlier AI experience, intermediate assumes you already use an AI assistant at work, and advanced assumes you work with AI tools in depth.

AI courses for designers

Generative tools are entering research, ideation and prototyping across UX and product design. 2 courses are written for designers; the general AI courses further down fit any role.

Design courses by level

Beginner2

Find your AI level

Four questions about what you already do. It takes under a minute and shows the courses that fit.

1. Do you use an AI assistant (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot) at least weekly for real work?
2. Do you write your own detailed prompts and rework them when the answer is off?
3. Have you built a repeatable AI workflow, such as a saved prompt library, an automation or an AI agent?
4. Have you set AI rules, evaluated AI output for a team, or led an AI project?

Written for designers

Coursera
GenAI for UX Designers
BeginnerCheck costDesign
A Coursera course on how generative AI fits UX design work. Check cost on Coursera. The level is ours.
Take it on Coursera Details
IBM
Generative AI for UI UX Design
BeginnerCheck costDesign
An IBM specialization on Coursera on using generative AI across the product design workflow. Check cost on Coursera. The level is ours.
Take it on Coursera Details

General AI courses that fit any role

Start here if no course above matches your level yet.

IBM
AI for Everyone: Master the Basics
BeginnerFreeAny role
A free-to-audit foundational course on AI concepts and terminology.
Take it on edX Details
Anthropic
Claude 101
BeginnerFreeAny role
Everyday use of Claude as an AI assistant for writing, research and analysis, with the prompt writing habits that make it reliable.
Take it on Anthropic Academy Details
GitHub
Getting Started with GitHub Copilot
BeginnerFreeAny role
GitHub’s free hands-on exercise in its own repository: use Copilot as an AI pair programmer to write, debug and ship code faster.
Take it on GitHub Skills Details
Google Cloud
Introduction to Generative AI
BeginnerFreeAny role
A free, short intro to what generative AI is and how it works.
Take it on Coursera Details
Microsoft
Use Copilot in Power Automate
BeginnerFreeAny role
A short Microsoft Learn module on using Copilot in Power Automate to build and change workflows by describing what you want.
Take it on Microsoft Learn Details
DeepLearning.AI
AI For Everyone
BeginnerCheck costAny role
A foundational, non-technical introduction to what AI can and can't do.
Take it on Coursera Details
DeepLearning.AI
Generative AI for Everyone
BeginnerCheck costAny role
A plain-language overview of generative AI and how it applies across roles.
Take it on Coursera Details
Google
Google AI Essentials
BeginnerCheck costAny role
A practical, beginner-friendly course on using AI tools day to day.
Take it on Coursera Details
Google
Google Prompting Essentials
BeginnerCheck costAny role
A short, practical course on writing effective prompts for everyday tasks.
Take it on Coursera Details
Runway
Runway Academy
BeginnerCheck costAny role
Runway’s own lessons, tutorials and hands-on training for AI video creation and generative AI creative tools.
Take it on Runway Details
Anthropic
AI Fluency: Framework & Foundations
IntermediateFreeAny role
A framework for working with AI assistants effectively, ethically and safely, built around responsible AI practice you can apply in any role.
Take it on Anthropic Academy Details
NVIDIA
An Even Easier Introduction to CUDA
IntermediateFreeAny role
A free, step-by-step introduction to CUDA C++ for GPUs, built around one parallel programming example.
Take it on NVIDIA Developer Details
Microsoft
Automate Tasks and Workflows in Microsoft Copilot Studio
IntermediateFreeAny role
Automate tasks across systems, websites and applications with agent flows and computer use in Microsoft Copilot Studio.
Take it on Microsoft Learn Details
DeepLearning.AI
ChatGPT Prompt Engineering for Developers
IntermediateFreeAny role
Prompt engineering patterns, then using LLM APIs to summarise, classify, transform and expand text inside your own applications.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
Anthropic
Claude Code in Action
IntermediateFreeAny role
Anthropic’s free course on running longer Claude Code sessions you can trust: steer the assistant, configure it, automate repeat work and verify what it wrote.
Take it on Anthropic Academy Details
DeepLearning.AI
How Diffusion Models Work
IntermediateFreeAny role
Build a diffusion model from the ground up, the technique behind AI image generation, and learn how today’s versions speed up sampling.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
NIST
NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF)
IntermediateFreeAny role
The free, public framework most AI policies cite: Govern, Map, Measure, Manage. Read it to write or review an AI use policy or a use-case risk review.
Take it on Certification body Details
Wharton
AI for Business Specialization
IntermediateCheck costAny role
A specialization on applying AI to real business decisions and strategy.
Take it on Coursera Details
Duke
AI Product Management Specialization
IntermediateCheck costAny role
A specialization on building and managing AI-powered products.
Take it on Coursera Details
AWS
Generative AI for Executives
IntermediateCheck costAny role
A course framing generative AI in terms of business impact and decision-making.
Take it on Coursera Details
IBM
Generative AI for HR Professionals
IntermediateCheck costAny role
A course on applying generative AI to HR workflows.
Take it on Coursera Details
IBM
Generative AI Fundamentals Professional Certificate
IntermediateCheck costAny role
A professional certificate covering practical generative AI fundamentals.
Take it on edX Details
Vanderbilt
Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT
IntermediateCheck costAny role
A practical course on getting better, more reliable results from AI chat tools.
Take it on Coursera Details
DeepLearning.AI
AI Agents in LangGraph
AdvancedFreeAny role
Design AI agents and agentic workflows in LangGraph: tool calling, persistence and human-in-the-loop control.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
Harvard
CS50's Introduction to Artificial Intelligence with Python
AdvancedFreeAny role
A free-to-audit course on AI concepts and implementation in Python.
Take it on edX Details
DeepLearning.AI
Evaluating AI Agents
AdvancedFreeAny role
Test whether AI agents do the right thing: AI evaluation methods, spotting hallucinations and measuring output quality.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
Fine-tuning & RL for LLMs: Intro to Post-training
AdvancedFreeAny role
Apply fine-tuning and reinforcement learning to shape model behavior, improve reasoning, and make LLMs safer and more reliable.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
Finetuning Large Language Models
AdvancedFreeAny role
When to finetune instead of prompt, how to choose an open-source model, prepare data, then train and evaluate for your domain.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
LangChain for LLM Application Development
AdvancedFreeAny role
Build LLM applications with LangChain: models, prompts, memory and chains, then AI agents that call tools, on top of an LLM API.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
LLMOps
AdvancedFreeAny role
LLMOps best practices: design and automate the steps to fine-tune and deploy an LLM for a specific task.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
MCP: Build Rich-Context AI Apps with Anthropic
AdvancedFreeAny role
Build AI applications that reach tools and data through the Model Context Protocol, including MCP servers and AI agents that use them.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
Multi AI Agent Systems with crewAI
AdvancedFreeAny role
Build multi-agent systems with crewAI where AI agents divide a task, use tools and hand work to each other.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
Red Teaming LLM Applications
AdvancedFreeAny role
Red team an LLM application to find safety and security failures, then use model evaluation to measure and fix them.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
Vector Databases: from Embeddings to Applications
AdvancedFreeAny role
How embeddings and vector databases power semantic search and retrieval-augmented applications, with hands-on builds.
Take it on DeepLearning.AI Details
DeepLearning.AI
Deep Learning Specialization
AdvancedCheck costAny role
A specialization on neural networks and deep learning.
Take it on Coursera Details
IBM
IBM AI Engineering Professional Certificate
AdvancedCheck costAny role
A hands-on professional certificate covering ML and deep learning engineering.
Take it on Coursera Details
DeepLearning.AI
Machine Learning in Production
AdvancedCheck costAny role
Design a production machine learning system: scoping, data, modelling, deployment and monitoring. Offered by DeepLearning.AI on Coursera.
Take it on Coursera Details
DeepLearning.AI & Stanford
Machine Learning Specialization
AdvancedCheck costAny role
A widely-used specialization on ML fundamentals.
Take it on Coursera Details
MIT
Machine Learning with Python
AdvancedCheck costAny role
A course on implementing machine learning models in Python.
Take it on edX Details
University of Michigan
Python for Everybody
AdvancedCheck costAny role
A beginner-friendly specialization for learning Python from scratch.
Take it on Coursera Details

Levels and functions are NextChapter's guidance, read from each course's own description; the provider may label them differently or not at all. Cost, dates and content are set by the provider, so check its page before you enroll. Providers marked "Partner" have a relationship with NextChapter; the others are included because the course is good.

See open Design jobs and which skills they name

Questions people ask

Which AI course should designers take first?: Start at your own level, then choose a course written for designers if there is one at that level. This page lists 2 written for the work, then the general AI courses that fit any role.
Are these AI courses free?: Many are free, and each course is marked free or "check cost". Prices and free trials are set by the provider and change, so confirm on the provider's page before you enroll.
How do you decide a course's level and function?: We read each course's own description and place it on our three-level ladder and in the functions it is written for. Providers often use their own labels or none, so treat ours as guidance. Beginner needs no earlier AI experience, intermediate assumes you already use an AI assistant at work, and advanced assumes you work with AI tools in depth.

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