Google AI Essentials is a beginner, self-paced course certificate that Google says takes under five hours and costs $49 a month on Coursera after a seven-day free trial. It teaches AI basics, prompting, and responsible use of AI tools at work. It is built for non-technical and cross-functional professionals. It builds AI literacy, not engineering skills, so pair it with an AI degree or an intro machine learning course if you want technical AI roles.
~10
Hours
Self-paced
Format
Beginner
Level
What you'll learn
- How AI and generative AI work at a high level
- Prompt engineering basics
- Using AI tools responsibly in the workplace
- Identifying AI use cases in your role
Certificate vs. degree
This certificate is ideal for AI literacy—not for technical AI engineering roles. For engineering paths, see AI degrees or the Intro to ML course track.