Is the Elements of AI course really free?

Yes, both courses are free to study. The Introduction to AI certificate is free of charge. Building AI's content and exercises are free too, but its shareable certificate costs €50 (including VAT, if applicable). The vendor suggests buying it only once you have passed.

Do I need to know maths or programming to take Elements of AI?

Not for Introduction to AI. The vendor says it needs no complicated maths or programming. For Building AI, the vendor recommends some basic Python. Its beginner-level exercises need no code, but the intermediate and advanced levels do.

Is Elements of AI good for complete beginners?

Introduction to AI is written for everyone, so yes, if you want to understand the ideas. Be ready to study, though. The vendor says to expect to study and review all sections carefully, and some exercises are marked by other learners, so getting your certificate can take a while.

Will Elements of AI teach me to use ChatGPT or other AI tools?

No. Neither course's chapter list covers using chat tools or writing prompts. The courses explain how AI methods work. For day-to-day use, take a hands-on course alongside it, such as Prompting for beginners.

What can I learn for free if I want to use AI tools in daily life?

Our courses are free. Each one is 3 to 6 short lessons that include the exact prompts we used. Start with AI for beginners: start here, then move on to Prompting for beginners. Add Elements of AI if you also want the ideas behind the tools.

Elements of AI free course: what it covers and next steps

Short answer: both Elements of AI courses are free to study, and the certificate for the first course is free too. The one thing you might pay for is the optional certificate for the second course. Everything below comes from the vendor’s own pages, checked on 9 October 2026.

What Elements of AI is and who makes it

The vendor describes Elements of AI as “a series of free online courses created by MinnaLearn and the University of Helsinki”. You may see Reaktor named as a partner in older articles. The current home page names only MinnaLearn and the university.

There are two courses, and they are meant to be taken in order:

Introduction to AI (Part 1) is for “everyone interested in learning what AI is, what is possible (and not possible) with AI, and how it affects our lives”, with “no complicated math or programming required”.
Building AI (Part 2) is where “you’ll learn about the actual algorithms that make creating AI methods possible”. The vendor says “some basic Python programming skills are recommended”. It also suggests finishing Introduction to AI first, though that is not a requirement.

You study at your own pace, and the home page offers a separate version for each of many countries. Your certificate comes in the language you took the course in.

Is it really free?

Yes, to study. For Introduction to AI, the vendor’s FAQ says: “The Introduction to AI course certificate is free of charge.” For Building AI, the course content and every exercise are free, but the shareable certificate costs €50 (including VAT, if applicable). The vendor suggests you buy it only once you have passed.

To pass Introduction to AI you need to “complete at least 90% of the exercises and get 50% of the exercises right”. Some written answers are marked by other learners. You need to give at least 3 reviews on each of those exercises yourself, and the vendor says missing this is “the most common reason for not getting the certificate”. Peer review can be slow, so the vendor advises against promising your certificate to anyone by a set date.

University credit has conditions. If you complete the Global, Finnish or Swedish version, you can apply free of charge for a transcript with ECTS credits from the University of Helsinki Open University. Introduction to AI is worth 2 ECTS. Registering needs strong online identification, through Finland’s Suomi.fi service or the European eIDAS scheme. The vendor says the route for people who cannot use strong identification is temporarily suspended. Before you count on credits, check that you can sign in that way, or ask your own university whether it will recognise the course.

What the course covers

Introduction to AI has six chapters:

What is AI?
AI problem solving
Real world AI (odds, probability and the Bayes rule)
Machine learning
Neural networks
Implications (predicting the future and the effects of AI on society)

Building AI covers optimisation, dealing with uncertainty, machine learning (including working with text and overfitting) and neural networks. It ends with you writing up an AI idea of your own. Every exercise comes in three levels: beginner, intermediate and advanced. The vendor says the intermediate and advanced levels require programming.

Plan for real study time. The vendor’s advice page says: “Completing Introduction to AI and Building AI courses will require some work. Expect to study and review all sections carefully to truly understand the content.” It also suggests studying with a group and booking regular slots in your calendar.

What it does not teach

Neither chapter list covers opening a chat tool, writing a prompt, checking an answer or using AI on a task from your own week. The courses explain how AI methods work: how a machine learns from examples, how it handles uncertainty, and what that means for society.

That background is worth having. It makes the news and the sales pitches easier to read. It will not tell you why a chat answer came back vague, or what to type next to fix it.

Concepts and practice are different jobs, and most people who do not code need both. Ideas without practice leave you able to explain AI and still unsure how to use it. Practice without ideas leaves you typing prompts with no sense of why the answers come back the way they do.

Who it suits, and who should start somewhere else

Elements of AI suits you if:

you like to understand something before you use it
you are happy to work through exercises and wait for peer review
you want the vocabulary for work and a free certificate in your own language
you are curious about algorithms (Building AI’s beginner level needs no code)

Start somewhere else if your main goal is to use chat tools for real tasks soon. If you have emails to draft or a plan to make, a concepts course is the long way round. Go hands-on first and come back to the ideas when you have questions of your own.

A sensible order: ideas first or practice first

Both orders work. Pick the one that matches how you learn.

Ideas first: take Introduction to AI, then a hands-on course. The concepts give you a map before you start.
Practice first: start hands-on, then take Introduction to AI to make sense of what you have been seeing.

For most beginners, a little practice first works well. It gives the ideas something to attach to. Then do the concepts course, then go back to practice.

Our courses cover the hands-on side. They are free, each is 3 to 6 lessons of 5 to 15 minutes, and they include the exact prompts we used, so you can copy them and try them straight away. Begin with AI for beginners: start here. Its first lesson, what AI chat tools are, and what they get wrong, takes you from no experience to your first conversation.

If you want to get better at writing prompts quickly, take Prompting for beginners. It opens with why AI answers come back vague, the most common problem new users meet.

What to do after you finish

Once you finish Elements of AI, what is left to build is the habit of using it.

Pick one small, real task from your week and try an AI chat tool on it.
Check what it tells you. Knowing how these systems learn from data makes it easier to see why they sometimes get things wrong.
When an answer misses, rewrite your prompt rather than starting again. The prompting course shows you how.

Each of our courses ends with a certificate of completion. It is not a qualification, and the certificates page explains exactly what it shows.

Elements of AI free course: what it covers, who it suits and what to do next