This deserves a short note, mostly because it is worth bookmarking: both OpenAI and Anthropic now have official free training for learning their tools properly.
For ChatGPT, the starting point is OpenAI Academy. It includes free, self-paced courses on AI foundations, practical ChatGPT use, workflows, and agents. They are useful for putting some order into things many of us learn by trial and error: how to provide context, how to review outputs, what to delegate, and where to keep human control.
For Claude, the reference is Anthropic Academy, hosted on Skilljar. It includes courses such as Claude 101, Claude Code, Claude Platform, API, MCP, AI Fluency, and material aimed at educators, students, nonprofits, and small businesses.
The useful bit is not just that they are free. For me, the real value is that they come from the official source and help separate actual good practice from the usual list of “magic prompts” that goes stale in two weeks.
They can also help if you later want to move towards formal credentials. The distinction matters:
- OpenAI Academy courses provide completion certificates, but they are not formal OpenAI Certifications.
- OpenAI Certified exists as a separate Coursera and Credly powered experience, but it is currently limited to invite-only Enterprise and Edu workspaces.
- Anthropic has paid certifications inside its Partner Academy, tied to the Claude Partner Network, with free preparation courses.
In short: if you use ChatGPT or Claude regularly, spending a few hours on these academies looks like a sensible investment. Free, official, and a much better foundation than learning only from viral threads.
PS: Banner image generated with AI