They handed you AI and wished you luck…

A few years back, at Microsoft, someone wheeled a new tool into our world and essentially said, "Right, off you go." No manual. No training. Just a login, a vague promise of transformation, and the unspoken expectation that we'd all be 30% more brilliant by Friday.

I remember sitting there thinking, "Lovely. And who, exactly, is going to show me how to use this?"

Nobody. That was the answer. Nobody was going to show me.

I've lived through four of these moments now. Analogue to digital in music. 2D to 3D in gaming. The slow commoditisation of anti-virus at Kaspersky. Office-to-remote working, courtesy of a global pandemic nobody ordered. Every single time, the same thing happened: the people who quietly worked out how to adapt pulled ahead, and the people who waited to be taught got left behind, wondering what just happened.

And here's the bit that stings - the company rarely teaches you. They buy the thing. They tick the box. They tell the board they've "invested in capability." Then they wish you luck and go to lunch.

So let's talk about AI. Because right now, your employer has almost certainly done exactly that to you.

There's a quiet little fiction running through boardrooms at the moment, and it goes like this: we bought the AI, therefore our people can use the AI.

It's a bit like buying your teenager a piano and being baffled when Rachmaninov doesn't pour out of the front room by Tuesday.

Your company has paid for a tool. It has not paid for your fluency with that tool. Those are two completely different line items, and only one of them appeared on the invoice. The expectation of 5x output, however, was very much included - free of charge, applied directly to your objectives, and entirely without your consent.

I find this quietly hilarious and mildly infuriating in equal measure. We are, collectively, being asked to deliver a transformation that nobody has been trained to deliver. The budget for the software was found instantly. The budget for teaching you to use it has gone the way of the office cookie jar.

So here's the uncomfortable truth, and I say this as someone who genuinely wants you to win: the training budget probably isn't coming. The opportunity, however, very much is.

The other four shifts I lived through all required market insight. Reading the landscape. Spotting where the wind was heading and leaning into it before everyone else did. That's a strategist's skill, and not everyone has it.

AI is different, and this is the good news.

This time, the advantage isn't reserved for the people who can read the market. It's available to anyone willing to spend a few evenings actually learning the tool. The barrier to getting ahead has never been lower. The number of people who'll bother to clear it is, frankly, smaller than you'd think - and that gap is your opportunity.

You don't need permission. You don't need a budget. You don't need to wait for your company to schedule a "lunch and learn" that mysteriously never gets scheduled.

You need an evening, a coffee, and a starting point.

I've pulled together the best free, credible places to start - the ones I'd point my own coaching clients towards. No affiliate nonsense, no upsell. Pick one. Just one.

1. Anthropic - Claude Academy ( anthropic.skilljar.com ). Best for regular Claude users and prompt workflows. Free courses, certificate on completion.

2. Grow with Google - AI ( grow.google/ai ). Best for small business and non-tech professionals. Free workshops, properly practical.

3. IBM SkillsBuild ( skillsbuild.org ). Best for complete beginners. Free learning paths with certificates.

4. AWS Skill Builder - Generative AI ( skillbuilder.aws ). Best for those working alongside tech teams. Free tier, some paid advanced tracks.

5. DeepLearning.AI - AI for Everyone ( coursera.org/learn/ai-for-everyone ). Best for non-technical professionals. Free to audit, optional paid certificate.

6. Microsoft Learn - AI ( learn.microsoft.com/training/ai ). Best for enterprise and Microsoft ecosystem users. Free learning paths (sign-in needed).

7. NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute ( developer.nvidia.com/dli ). Best for hands-on technical learners. Many free courses, some paid labs.

8. Harvard CS50 - AI with Python ( cs50.harvard.edu/ai ). Best for a rigorous, university-level foundation. Free to audit, optional paid certificate.

9. OpenAI + DeepLearning.AI ( deeplearning.ai/short-courses ). Best for practical prompting skills (ChatGPT and more). Fully free, short-form courses.

10. Google Cloud Generative AI ( cloud.google.com/learn/training ). Best for business and technical professionals. Free courses with certificates.

A word of advice that I'd underline twice if this format allowed it: start with the course that matches your role, not your ambition.

It's tempting to leap straight to the advanced technical track because it sounds impressive. Resist that. The person who finishes the beginner course beats the person who abandons the advanced one. You can always layer the clever stuff in later, once the fundamentals no longer feel like a foreign language.

Here's what tickles me about all this.

Your company is asking you to become more valuable, more productive, more indispensable - and in doing so, they're handing you the exact skill set that makes you more employable everywhere else, too.

They wanted 5x output. What they're actually creating is a workforce that suddenly has a great deal more leverage than it had last year. The skills don't belong to the company. They belong to you. They go where you go.

So no, the absence of a training budget isn't the insult it first appears to be. It's an invitation to take control of something that, for once, nobody can put "at risk" in a letter.

This week: Pick one course from the list above - the one that matches your role, not your ego. Block out a single 90-minute slot in your calendar and treat it like a meeting you can't move. Complete the first module. That's it. Momentum beats intention every time.

This month: Apply what you've learned to one real task you do regularly. Don't learn AI in the abstract - bolt it onto something you already do badly, slowly, or grudgingly. Then quietly note how much time you got back. Keep the receipts. They'll matter at review time.

This quarter: Earn the certificate, add it to your LinkedIn profile, and - crucially - make your growing capability visible to the people who decide your future. Volunteer for the project nobody else feels equipped to take on. Become the person others ask, "How did you do that so fast?" That reputation compounds far faster than any salary.

The licence was the easy part. Your company has done its bit, ticked its box, and gone to lunch.

What happens next is entirely, refreshingly, up to you.

Keep on rockin'!

Harvey