AI arrived in about eighteen months, everyone started talking about it as though it were obvious, and a great many people were left standing there wondering when they were supposed to have learned it.
So here's the lesson. Half an hour, free, no signup. By the end you'll have used it, you'll know what it's actually good for, and you'll know how not to get caught out by it.
For people who think it's not for them.
Free, and it stays free.
That's who this is for. Not developers, not people who already know. People who've been meaning to look into it, who feel slightly foolish asking, and who'd quite like someone to just explain it properly for once.
You'll be set up and using it within ten minutes, on your phone and your laptop.
There's one habit that separates people who find it useful from people who try twice and stop. It's Lesson 1.
The full course has a module on CVs, applications, interviews and running something small.
You've spent twenty-five years learning to type as few words as possible. Train times Manchester. Chicken recipe. Keywords, fragments — because that's what worked.
This is the opposite. It's a conversation, and it gets better the more you tell it, not less.
chicken recipe
You get a chicken recipe. Nothing you couldn't have found yourself.
I've got two chicken breasts, half a bag of spinach and some rice that needs using up. There's two of us, I'm not a confident cook, and I've got about half an hour. What can I make?
Now you get something that's actually for you. And you can follow it with "I don't much like spinach" — because it remembers.
The free course is genuinely complete — you can stop there and just start using the thing. That's a perfectly good outcome.
Two more courses are on the way — have a look at what's coming.
Four short lessons. What it actually is, getting you set up, writing the message you've been putting off, and the three rules that keep you out of trouble. Read it here, right now, with no signup.
Seven modules, 34 lessons. Reading the letters and documents that never quite make sense, writing the difficult messages properly, everyday use, and work if that's where you are.
Two more are on the way. Neither is finished, so neither is for sale — I'd rather take the time and get them right than announce a date and miss it. If you'd like telling when one is ready, leave your email at the bottom and I'll drop you a line. Nothing else, ever.
For people who need this at their desk, not just at home. Writing, summarising, research, meeting preparation, reports and decision support — and, just as importantly, the judgement to know when not to use it.
For anyone who's wanted a proper website and been put off by the idea of learning to code. Plan it, build it, put it online — using AI tools, from a standing start.
One short email when a course is ready, and nothing in between. I don't sell addresses or pass them on.
Which mostly means I spent a long time learning how this technology actually works — and then watched a lot of people be told about it very badly. There's an enormous amount of AI advice online, and most of it is vague, repetitive, or written by someone who read three articles that morning.
So I wrote the thing I'd want my own family to read. Short lessons, one idea at a time, honest about what it gets wrong. The free course is free because I'd rather you found out whether I'm any good at explaining before you pay me anything.
More about meNo. If you can install an app and type a message, you can do this. Lesson 2 walks you through the setup one tap at a time, including the bit where it emails you to check it's really you — which is where most people wander off and don't come back.
It's actually free, and it's actually complete. By the end you'll be set up, you'll have used it properly, and you'll know the safety rules. You can stop there and be perfectly well served. The full course goes further; it isn't the same thing withheld.
Not to read the free course — it's just there on the site. If you want the printable cheat sheet sent over, you can send it to me, but that's your choice and nothing is gated behind it.
No signup, no email, nothing to install first. Just open Lesson 1 and read — with your phone next to you, because doing it afterwards doesn't happen. You know it doesn't.