Guides

Long-form guides from AI Academy on learning and running AI in real work, written and re-checked by Ronan Liedmeier.

New to the vocabulary? Start with the AI glossary.

• How do I learn AI without coding and get from chat user to operator?

  You do not need to code to use AI seriously. The path from chat user to operator runs through how models work, briefing, fact-checking, tool choice, connecting AI to your own data and one small automation, and most people can walk it in weeks of evenings.

• How do you spot an AI hallucination in five minutes?

  Stop at the first specific claim, ask the tool for its source, open that source, compare the sentence on the page with the sentence in the chat, then check the date and a second source. Five steps, about five minutes, and they catch the invented number, the misattributed quote and the citation that leads nowhere.

• Should I use ChatGPT or Claude for everyday work?

  For writing, summarising and everyday questions either one does the job, and both have a free plan. The rows that decide it are images (ChatGPT, on every tier), Gmail and Drive connectors on the free plan (Claude), very long documents (Claude on a paid plan, up to 1 million tokens) and the Word add-in on the free plan (ChatGPT). Pick one, stay with it for a month, and add the second only for a job the first cannot do.

• How do you build your first AI automation in n8n or Zapier tonight, and which one should you pick?

  A first AI automation is three steps: a form or email arrives, an AI step labels it lead, support or spam and writes two lines, and the result lands in Slack or a sheet. This guide gives the clicks, the brief for the AI step, the test on real data and the monthly cost in n8n and Zapier, from their pricing and docs pages.

• What is MCP, and how does it plug AI into the tools you already use?

  MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard that lets an AI assistant connect to apps like Gmail, Google Drive or Notion and read or act in them. You turn it on through a settings screen, no code needed, and you decide which actions it may take.