How to get the Google AI Professional Certificate for free, and why it's worth learning

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

Google’s course builds practical AI skills from the basics to app building.

The hands-on Gemini training is broad, useful, and well-built.

Move fast to beat the trial clock and avoid Coursera’s fee.

At first, I was unsure about recommending this course to earn a Google AI Professional Certificate — mostly because the process kicks off with a few inconveniences and annoyances. However, after completing the course — and considering everything you get from sticking with the whole thing, I highly recommend it. (Whether you pay for it or not.)

Also: Just 13% of professionals are confident using AI

In this article, I’ll step you through what Google and Coursera are offering and what you’ll get from the process. Stay tuned to the end, where I offer some essential tips for completing the course and getting your certificate for free. I’ll also outline some of the annoyances, because they do need to be mentioned.

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Google’s certificate.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Courses covered

The Google AI Professional Certificate is a bundle of individual hour-long courses. Eight of them, to be precise:

Al Fundamentals

Al for Brainstorming and Planning

Al for Research and Insights

Al for Writing and Communicating

Each course consists of a few video clips by Google staffers, one or two AI-narrated overviews, and some lab time.

Here’s how courses are structured.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Solid educational basis

From an educational theory perspective, each course is very well-designed. The sequence of courses, as they relate to each other, is also strong, with each building on the previous one.

Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development discusses scaffolding in which one bit of learning is stacked on top of another. The idea behind cognitivism is that you build knowledge one bit at a time, stretching yourself slightly as you increase understanding.

Each course in this Google certificate program does that. The earlier courses form the scaffolding for the later ones, so by the time you reach data analysis and even app development, nothing comes as a surprise. At that point, you have all the foundational knowledge to absorb the more complex concepts.

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Key to this is the actualization of another educational theory, constructivism. The idea here is that we learn by doing and that everyone’s learned experiences are unique. The more you can engage students by guided discovery and helping them build their own knowledge, the better it will stick.

Each course is divided into modules. Each module has one or more lab projects. Lab projects are essentially guided use of Gemini to build or accomplish something. The courseware experience is split into two windows, with Gemini on the left and the course guidance and video on the right.

You can follow the prompts provided. Each prompt leaves room for you to add your own interests and subjects, making each use of Gemini in the context of the course unique.

Unlike Google’s free AI Essentials course from last year, this class is not AI-agnostic. This is a very, very Gemini-centric class. That said, almost all the learning you can take from this course can apply to other AIs. And to be fair, this is a Google AI Professional Certification, not just a generic AI course.

Also: The best free AI courses and certificates for upskilling

Behaviorism learning theory states that learning is based on stimulus, responses, and consequences. Quizzes are a classic example of behaviorism in practice, where the question is the environmental situation that requires a response, the student’s answers are the responses, and the consequences (and feedback to the student) provide the immediate reinforcement of learning.

Up until the app development courses, each course in the Google AI Professional Certificate ends with a quiz that you must pass to continue. I really enjoyed most of the quizzes. I was moderately disappointed that the “quizzes” for the app development courses at the end of the certificate were open-ended, ungraded questions rather than the more immediate multiple-choice questions of the earlier courses.

Advanced learning

Here’s what impressed me, and why I’m recommending this course so highly. The overall learning process is so well constructed that by the time you reach the data analysis section, you’ll have some understanding of how to use AI for complex data analysis.

Follow along in the lab, working on your own prompts.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Like the other courses in this certification, the data analysis course only takes about an hour. But the course walks you through using Gemini, Google Sheets, and Canvas to do some fairly powerful unstructured data analysis with enough takeaways that you should be able to use some of it right away.

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The app development courses are similar. This is not a full-tilt software development course by any means. Google’s instructors take you into Google AI Studio to build apps that you wouldn’t deploy commercially. But they are apps you could definitely share with your own team and deploy internally. That alone is huge.

Explaining vibe coding.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

The class introduces the idea of vibe coding and shows how to construct apps. With the lab experience, you’re walked through creating three separate apps you can actually use. A second class considers testing, debugging, and deploying. Again, the hands-on experience means that by the time you’re done, you will have actually built some small apps.

This progress is what impressed me. The course starts from the absolute basics of generative AI. Yet within about eight hours, assuming you do the work, you’ll have a fairly decent hands-on, basic understanding of app development.

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For free. Or, at least, free-ish.

Free…ish

The Google AI Professional Certificate is technically not free. But you don’t necessarily have to pay for it.

How enrollment is described.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

The blue text box says “Enroll for free,” but that’s enrolling, not learning. In reality, you’re signing up for a free seven-day trial on Coursera.

How the seven-day trial works.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

This is where things get a little confusing. The promo says “Certificate when you complete after your trial ends.” There’s a lot of upsell here. For example, when I completed the AI Fundamentals course, I received this message.

Interim certificates appear to be locked until you pay.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

At the end of every course, I was pitched to pay up to get my certificate early. I think this means each course comes with a certificate as well, but I did not receive them when I completed the full suite. I don’t know whether they will be awarded after the trial period or only if you pay up. I did, however, get the certificate for the entire professional certification.

More upselling.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Oh, and this, too.

And yet another upsell attempt.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

There are two other things you should keep in mind before starting this program. First, you must give the provider a credit card number (although it won’t be charged until the seven days end).

My card wasn’t charged, but you will need one to take the course.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

No partial completion certificates for you.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Fortunately, if you do complete the full eight-course bundle before the seven days are up, you’ll get the full certificate, as I did. But do not cancel until you’ve downloaded the certificate. Once issued, certificates do remain in your account even after you cancel.

Things to look out for

If you want to take the course for free, be prepared before you enroll. As soon as you sign up, the clock starts ticking. As long as you complete all eight courses within seven days, you’ll earn your certificate. Make sure you download the final certificate before you cancel your trial.

At about an hour per course, I recommend doing two courses per day, and starting as soon as you sign up. Don’t wait until you’re on day six, or you’ll have a lot to cram in.

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Also, the courses (especially the later ones) require access to Gemini Pro. Fortunately, Google offers a free three-month trial to Gemini Pro, so you can use all its features to complete your course. The offer isn’t entirely obvious.

Click where the blue arrow points for a Gemini Pro trial.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

Oh, and don’t be too surprised if you get an email or 30 from Coursera. These all came in today.

Lots of email messages.Screenshot by David Gewirtz/ZDNET

I mean, seriously? It is a little much.

Bottom line

If you need to provide proof of general AI literacy, this certificate provides tangible evidence of completing coursework and a baseline of competence. I am also a strong believer in continuing education. While I have decades of AI experience, I welcome the opportunity to keep fresh with new classes, even though most of the material isn’t new to me.

Also: The key trait this CTO values in employees above all – even AI skills

If you’re willing to complete the eight hours within the seven-day trial window, this course offers substantial value for your time. Yes, there are lots of upsells scattered throughout the course. As annoying as they may be, they’re also tolerable, especially for the value the course provides.

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David Gewirtz

Senior Contributing Editor

Computer science professor turned AI innovator David Gewirtz has spent over thirty years driving advancements at the forefront of artificial intelligence and is the recipient of the Sigma Xi Research Award in Engineering. He wrote a pioneering analysis that helped shape the early conversation around AI ethics. He was also a pioneer in the commercializing of AI products, including AI languages and knowledge-based systems. He is the designer of the Al Editor, an experimental artificial intelligence engine for parsing, classifying, and identifying news stories. David is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He currently serves on the Artificial Intelligence Threat and Mitigation Cross-Sector Council (AI CSC) for InfraGard, a partnership between the FBI and industry leaders for the protection of U.S. Critical Infrastructure. He is the author of Where Have All the Emails Gone?, as well as How To Save Jobs and The Flexible Enterprise.

See full bio

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