The bit every other course skips
Almost every AI course sells you the same catalogue whoever you are — the same first video to someone who has never opened a chatbot and to someone who has been building with AI for a year. We compared 10 of the best-known ways to learn AI in the UK. Not one of them places you first.
What it actually does
Asks what you can do
Five skill areas, one self-rating each, plus your goal and the AI tools you use. This part is quick and it is not the answer — it is the claim.
Checks the claim
Scenario questions probe the level you claimed. A wrong answer at or below your claimed level moves you down one in that area. A right answer confirms it. Crucially, scenarios can only ever lower a rating — so an optimistic self-assessment cannot land you somewhere you will drown.
Branches, so it stays short
Claim level 1 in an area and the deeper scenarios for it never appear. The placement check is 0 questions at its longest and far fewer for most people — about five minutes, closer to ten if you know a lot.
Builds the path
Every released module (18 of them), ordered by your level and your goal, with modules you have evidenced marked as tested out. Your tools come first in the lessons. You are never charged to sit through something you have already proved.
Because nobody is one level at everything
A single overall score hides the thing you most need to know. Plenty of people use AI every day and could not explain how a model works, or write a good prompt and have never read a word of the EU AI Act. The path is built from the five numbers, not the average.
Using AI tools
5 modules sit in this area.
How AI and models work
5 modules sit in this area.
Building with AI
6 modules sit in this area, all coming soon.
Risk, data and regulation
9 modules sit in this area: 5 released, 4 coming soon.
Strategy and leading AI
7 modules sit in this area: 2 released, 5 coming soon.
What a level means
| Level | Name | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Foundations | Knows the vocabulary and can follow instructions |
| 2 | Practitioner | Works unsupervised on routine tasks |
| 3 | Builder | Sets the approach and can justify it with evidence |
| 4 | Leader | Sets standards others work to, and owns the outcome |
| 5 | Director | Sets direction for an organisation and answers for it |
A profile you can actually show someone
Re-take it whenever you like — every quarter is a sensible rhythm — and your profile records the movement. You can turn it into a link that shows your level in each area and the date it was assessed, which is a more useful thing to put in front of a manager than a completion badge.
Sharing is off unless you turn it on, and it never exposes your answers.
Find your level freeFive numbers, one date
This learner uses AI tools well but has never built with them. Their path skips the beginner material on using an assistant, rather than starting them at the same first lesson as everyone else.
