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.

612 of 1000 seats left

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

One email. No card. Nothing to install.

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

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.

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.

0 min90 min

Block 1 of 5. Warm-up, 10 min.

  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.

Ten courses

10 courses. 148 sessions. 278 hours.

  1. 01

    AI Foundations

    5 weeks / 20 sessions / 37.5 hours

    Leave with
    A model comparison report
    Needs
    None
  2. 02

    Asking Well

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Leave with
    A prompt notebook with before and after proof
    Needs
    Course 1
  3. 03

    Media and Documents

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Leave with
    Work combining text, image and a source document
    Needs
    Course 1
  4. 04

    Techniques That Hold Up

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Leave with
    A technique bake-off on supplied material
    Needs
    Course 1
  5. 05

    Judging AI: Your First Eval

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours Flagship

    Leave with
    A working evaluation spreadsheet
    Needs
    Course 1
  6. 06

    Measurement You Can Trust

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours Flagship

    Leave with
    An upgraded eval with spread and a judge
    Needs
    Course 5
  7. 07

    Truth, Sources and Snake Oil

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Leave with
    A lab report refuting or confirming a viral claim
    Needs
    Course 1
  8. 08

    Making It Yours

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Leave with
    A custom assistant with the eval that proves it
    Needs
    Course 1
  9. 09

    Safe and Responsible

    4 weeks / 16 sessions / 30 hours

    Leave with
    A personal AI policy and a red-team log
    Needs
    Course 1
  10. 10

    Capstone

    3 weeks / 12 sessions / 22.5 hours

    Leave with
    A shipped project and a live defense
    Needs
    Courses 1 and 5

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

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.

Printed on every course certificate

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.

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.

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

Cohort 1 starts Monday 7 September 2026.

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

Save my seat

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 leftCohort 1 starts 7 September 2026

Save my seat