Machina Institute

You are not talking to a model. You are talking to a product.

A free 37-week program in how AI actually works. For everyone, not just engineers. No coding, no subscriptions, no laptop needed.

One email. No card. Nothing to install.

  • 10courses
  • 148sessions
  • 278hours
  • 0paid tools
  • 1phone is enough

01 · What makes this different

A prompt you have not measured is a guess.

Most AI courses hand you a list of magic phrases. Most of those phrases do not survive testing. This program teaches you to check them yourself, on a spreadsheet, with a free account.

02 · What a session is

90 minutes. Five parts. Every single day.

No mystery about what you are signing up for. Here is the exact shape of every one of the 148 sessions.

  1. 10 min

    1Warm-up

    You do something in the first sixty seconds, before anyone explains anything.

  2. 25 min

    2Learn

    One idea. A worked example. A diagram. One thing to watch.

  3. 40 min

    3Do

    You write down what you predict, then run it, then see if you were right.

  4. 5 min

    4Capture

    Two lines into your AI journal. It runs the whole program.

  5. 10 min

    5Quiz

    Ten questions. Answers with reasons. You mark it yourself.

Total 90 minutes

03 · Contents

The ten courses.

  1. 01AI Foundations37.5 h

    5 weeks · 20 sessions · No prerequisite · You leave with a model comparison report

  2. 02Asking Well30 h

    4 weeks · 16 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with a prompt notebook with before and after proof

  3. 03Media and Documents22.5 h

    3 weeks · 12 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with work combining text, image and a source document

  4. 04Techniques That Hold Up22.5 h

    3 weeks · 12 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with a technique bake-off on supplied material

  5. 05Judging AI: Your First Eval30 h

    Flagship · 4 weeks · 16 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with a working evaluation spreadsheet

  6. 06Measurement You Can Trust22.5 h

    Flagship · 3 weeks · 12 sessions · Needs Course 5 · You leave with an upgraded eval with spread and a judge

  7. 07Truth, Sources and Snake Oil30 h

    4 weeks · 16 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with a lab report refuting or confirming a viral claim

  8. 08Making It Yours30 h

    4 weeks · 16 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with a custom assistant with the eval that proves it

  9. 09Safe and Responsible30 h

    4 weeks · 16 sessions · Needs Course 1 · You leave with a personal AI policy and a red-team log

  10. 10Capstone22.5 h

    3 weeks · 12 sessions · Needs Courses 1 and 5 · You leave with a shipped project and a live defense

Only Course 1 is required. Everything else is a recommendation, so you can start where you need to.

04 · What you walk away with

A certificate that says what you actually did.

Ten course certificates, four path certificates, one program certificate. Each one names the hours, the sessions, and what was assessed.

This assessment was not supervised.

Printed on every course certificate

That sentence is printed on every course certificate. Most online AI certificates do not tell you how they were assessed. We do. The one credential backed by a live, supervised defense says so too.

05 · What it costs you

A phone and a free account. That is the whole toolchain.

  • Free accounts on the chat apps you already have. No API keys, no installs, no card.
  • Every session is completable on a phone, deliverable included. Not a reduced version. The same work.
  • Every prompt is a tap to copy. Nobody retypes a paragraph on a phone.
  • A phone-only learner earns exactly the same certificate.

06 · Who it is for

This is for you if

  • You use AI most days and are not sure when to trust it.
  • You have to explain or govern this for other people.
  • Your work is words, pictures, documents or decisions.
  • You have never written a line of code and do not intend to.

This is not for you if

  • You want a list of prompts to paste.
  • You want to build models or write code.
  • You want a certificate without doing the work.

Cohort 1 starts Monday 7 September 2026.

Free for the first 1,000 students. 612 seats left.

Four 90-minute sessions a week, plus a fifth day for the weekly quiz and a live Q&A. Free tools only. The certificate needs the quizzes passed, the project submitted, and two peer reviews given.

612 seats leftFree for the first 1,000 students.

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