I nearly signed up for the wrong one and it would have cost me a fortnight. Five of these are free. One is for engineers only, and nothing on the page tells you that until you are in.
Not by price, not by prestige. The only question that matters is whether it is built for someone who runs a business or someone who writes code.
Straight to the provider. No affiliate links anywhere on this page.
One of these is excellent and completely wrong for a non-technical owner. It is on the list so you can skip it deliberately.
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A couple of hours, no prerequisites at all. This is the one I would put in front of a member of staff who is nervous about the whole subject. Free to audit on Coursera.
Free, and split into two tracks. Stay on the apply-at-work side. The build-with-AI track is for developers and you do not need it.
Genuinely excellent, and here is the bit that caught me out: roughly half of it is written for developers. Claude Code, the API, all of that. I did not know, felt immediately behind, and nearly closed it.
A proper proctored exam, 45 minutes, and Microsoft built it explicitly for people who do not write code. Worth a look if most of what you already pay for is sitting unused inside Office.
Their own page says it plainly: for anyone in any job role, with or without hands-on technical experience. 90 minutes, no prerequisites, valid three years. If you only do one paid one, I would do this.
This is the one I nearly booked. It is a genuinely excellent certification and it is completely wrong for a non-technical owner. Google recommend three years of industry experience and hands-on model building. It is on this list so you can skip it on purpose rather than by accident.
The one I only found recently and nobody mentions. Courses as short as 20 minutes, built for exactly this, and your Federation of Small Businesses or Chamber of Commerce membership gets you in.
Prices and course contents change, sometimes monthly, so I have deliberately left figures off this page. Every link above goes straight to the provider's own page where the current price is shown.
If you would rather build than study, start here.
Three skills that run a business, with the instruction files.
What done looks like, what it can decide, what comes back to you.
Cheatsheets, prompts and walkthroughs in one place.