The short answer
Partly. DeepLearning.AI's own help centre says free members can watch course videos, use the community forum and receive the newsletter, but do not get assessments, certificates or additional tools. Quizzes, interactive labs and certificates of completion come with a paid Pro membership. So you can learn from Andrew Ng's courses without paying, but you cannot prove you finished them without paying.
If you take the same courses on Coursera instead, a separate set of rules applies: Coursera sells certificates per course, and DeepLearning.AI's help centre confirms that paying there gets you an official Coursera certificate. AI For Everyone, the best known of Andrew Ng's non-technical courses, is available both ways.
Checked against DeepLearning.AI's own pages on 28 September 2026, including its Pro vs free help article, certificates help article and course catalogue, plus the AI For Everyone page on Coursera. Offers change, so confirm the current details before you enrol.
What is free on DeepLearning.AI, and what is not?
DeepLearning.AI, founded by Andrew Ng, runs its own learning platform and also publishes many of its courses on Coursera. Its catalogue is split into short courses, longer courses, specialisations and professional certificates, and many short courses are built with partners such as Google Cloud, Anthropic, OpenAI and Meta.
According to the help article What do I get with Pro that I don't get for free?, the split looks like this:
| On DeepLearning.AI | Free member | Pro member |
|---|---|---|
| Course videos | Yes | Yes |
| Community forum and newsletter | Yes | Yes |
| Quizzes and interactive labs | No | Yes |
| Certificates of completion | No | Yes |
| Saving work and resuming | No | Yes |
| Professional certificate learning tracks | No | Yes |
Course pages show Pro at $25 a month billed annually or $30 a month billed monthly, for example on the Machine Learning Specialization page. Prices may vary by country. There is a 7-day free trial that collects payment details up front and charges automatically at the end unless you cancel, and DeepLearning.AI says charges after the trial are non-refundable.
If you start the Pro trial just to grab a certificate, put a reminder in your calendar for day six. The help centre is clear that the charge is automatic and that post-trial charges are non-refundable.
Short courses. These are the one to two hour courses, often built with a partner company. The certificates help article says Pro subscribers who finish a short course get an Accomplishment in their account, and that free users do not. It also says plainly that Accomplishments are not official certificates. Some short course pages carry their own offer: the Claude Code short course, for example, says access is free for a limited time during the platform beta.
Is AI For Everyone free?
This is the course most non-technical people are actually looking for when they search for Andrew Ng. AI For Everyone is a beginner, non-technical course taught by Andrew Ng, aimed at business professionals among others. DeepLearning.AI lists it at just under 7 hours, typically over four weeks at two to three hours a week, covering what AI is, building AI projects, building AI in your company, and AI and society.
How free it is depends on where you take it:
- On DeepLearning.AI, the page states that the course costs $49 for 180 days of certificate eligibility. On the membership model described above, free members can watch the videos but do not get the assessments or certificate.
- On Coursera, the listing offers "Join for Free" and says eligible learners may be able to start with a free trial. It also says that purchasing a certificate gives access to all course materials including graded assignments, and that financial aid is available in select programmes if you cannot afford the fee.
What you see on Coursera can depend on your account and region, so look at the enrolment options on the page itself rather than assuming.
Andrew Ng's AI courses at a glance
All details below come from each course's DeepLearning.AI page on the date above.
| Course | Provider | What it covers | How technical | Free or paid | Certificate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AI For Everyone | DeepLearning.AI (also on Coursera) | What AI is, AI projects, AI in your company, AI and society. About 7 hours | Beginner, non-technical | Videos free to watch; certificate paid ($49 on DeepLearning.AI) | Paid |
| Generative AI for Everyone | DeepLearning.AI (also on Coursera) | How generative AI works, uses, prompting, business and society. About 5 hours | Beginner, no coding | Videos free to watch | With Pro |
| AI Prompting for Everyone | DeepLearning.AI | Research, writing, images, simple apps and data analysis with AI tools. About 7 hours | Beginner, no technical background required | Free to enrol | With Pro |
| Machine Learning Specialization | DeepLearning.AI (also on Coursera) | Supervised, unsupervised and reinforcement learning in Python. About 95 hours | Beginner level but needs basic coding and school maths | Free to audit; certificate paid | With Pro or on Coursera |
| Deep Learning Specialization | DeepLearning.AI (also on Coursera) | Neural networks, CNNs, RNNs, transformers in Python and TensorFlow. About 127 hours | Intermediate, needs Python and some linear algebra | Videos free to watch | With Pro |
| Claude Code: A Highly Agentic Coding Assistant | DeepLearning.AI with Anthropic | Using Claude Code across three projects. 2 hours | Intermediate, Python and Git recommended | Free for a limited time during the beta | Accomplishment with Pro |
In plain English
- Audit:
- Taking a course to learn the material without paying for the graded work or the certificate.
- Accomplishment:
- DeepLearning.AI's record that you finished a short course. The company says it is not an official certificate.
- Specialization:
- A sequence of related courses, usually several months of work, that ends in a single certificate.
Which DeepLearning.AI course suits you?
You want to understand AI well enough to talk about it at work. AI For Everyone was built for exactly that, and it remains a good use of seven hours. Watching the videos for free is enough if you do not need the certificate.
You want to use tools like ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini better. AI Prompting for Everyone is the more practical of Andrew Ng's beginner courses, and its page says no technical background is required. Generative AI for Everyone sits between the two: more about how the technology works and what it means for business.
You want to build machine learning systems. The Machine Learning Specialization is the standard starting point, and it is the better choice than any applied course, ours included. Go in knowing that it assumes basic coding and school-level maths, and that the Deep Learning Specialization after it assumes intermediate Python. These are months of work, not weekends. Our guide on how to choose a free AI course covers why picking the builder's route by accident is the most common way people give up.
You only care about the certificate. Then you are paying, either for Pro or per course on Coursera. Before you do, read free AI courses with certificates for what these certificates are and are not worth.
Where LearnWithZavi fits
LearnWithZavi is a free, independent site for people who want to use AI at work rather than build it. There is no signup and no payment stage, and nothing is held back behind a membership: every lesson, quiz and certificate is free. The certificate of completion is not accredited. It records that you finished the lessons and is not a formal qualification.
If Andrew Ng's courses gave you the big picture and you now want to practise, try Introduction to Generative AI or Introduction to AI Agents. You can also browse generative AI courses, courses that need no coding and free courses with a certificate. For other big-name providers, we have similar guides to Anthropic's free Claude courses and free AI courses from NVIDIA, IBM and AWS.
FAQ
Are DeepLearning.AI courses free? The videos are. DeepLearning.AI says free members can watch course videos, but quizzes, labs and certificates need a Pro membership.
Is AI For Everyone free? You can watch it without paying. DeepLearning.AI lists the certificate at $49 for 180 days of eligibility, and on Coursera you can join for free with graded work and the certificate behind a purchase.
Do DeepLearning.AI short courses give a certificate? No. Pro members who finish a short course get an Accomplishment, which DeepLearning.AI says is not an official certificate. Free users do not get one.
How much is DeepLearning.AI Pro? Course pages show $25 a month billed annually or $30 a month billed monthly on the date we checked. Prices may vary by country, and there is a 7-day free trial that charges automatically unless you cancel.
Which Andrew Ng course is best for non-technical people? AI For Everyone for understanding AI, or AI Prompting for Everyone for using AI tools better. Neither requires coding.
Can I audit the Machine Learning Specialization for free? Its DeepLearning.AI page says free auditing is available without a certificate. It expects basic coding and school-level maths.