MachinaInstitute

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.

Free for the first 1,000 students. Cohort 1 starts Monday 7 September 2026.

612seats left of 1,000

One email. No card. Nothing to install.

01

The program in five numbers.

  1. 10courses
  2. 148sessions
  3. 278hours
  4. 0paid tools
  5. 1phone is enough

02

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.

03

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.

90minutes total

  1. 01

    Warm-up 10 min

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

  2. 02

    Learn 25 min

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

  3. 03

    Do 40 min

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

  4. 04

    Capture 5 min

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

  5. 05

    Quiz 10 min

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

04

The ten courses

Ten courses. Start where you need to.

  1. 01

    AI Foundations

    You leave with: a model comparison report

    5 weeks / 20 sessions / 37.5 hours

    Prerequisite: none

  2. 02

    Asking Well

    You leave with: a prompt notebook with before and after proof

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  3. 03

    Media and Documents

    You leave with: work combining text, image and a source document

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  4. 04

    Techniques That Hold Up

    You leave with: a technique bake-off on supplied material

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  5. 05

    Judging AI: Your First Eval Flagship

    You leave with: a working evaluation spreadsheet

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  6. 06

    Measurement You Can Trust Flagship

    You leave with: an upgraded eval with spread and a judge

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 5

  7. 07

    Truth, Sources and Snake Oil

    You leave with: a lab report refuting or confirming a viral claim

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  8. 08

    Making It Yours

    You leave with: a custom assistant with the eval that proves it

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  9. 09

    Safe and Responsible

    You leave with: a personal AI policy and a red-team log

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Prerequisite: Course 1

  10. 10

    Capstone

    You leave with: a shipped project and a live defense

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Prerequisite: Courses 1 and 5

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

05

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.

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.

06

What it costs you

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

  1. 01

    Free accounts on the chat apps you already have. No API keys, no installs, no card.

  2. 02

    Every session is completable on a phone, deliverable included. Not a reduced version. The same work.

  3. 03

    Every prompt is a tap to copy. Nobody retypes a paragraph on a phone.

  4. 04

    A phone-only learner earns exactly the same certificate.

07

Read this part before you sign up.

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.

08

Cohort 1 starts Monday 7 September 2026.

612seats left

Free for the first 1,000 students.

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 left
Free for the first 1,000

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