1. Lex Fridman Podcast: https://lexfridman.com/podcast/

Conversations with leading minds in AI, science, and technology, often featuring deep dives into AI research and industry applications.

2. Machine Learning Street Talk (MLST): https://www.youtube.com/c/machinelearningstreettalk

In-depth discussions with top AI researchers and practitioners, focusing on current affairs, cognitive science, and the philosophy of AI.

3. The AI Podcast by NVIDIA: https://ai-podcast.nvidia.com/

Bi-weekly interviews with innovators using AI to transform industries, hosted by Noah Kravitz.

4. Eye on AI: https://www.eye-on.ai/

Award-winning journalist Craig S. Smith interviews experts on AI trends, research, and the global impact of artificial intelligence.

5. Practical AI: https://practicalai.fm/

Lively discussions among technology professionals, business leaders, and experts about real-world AI applications and industry trends.

6. Latent Space: The AI Engineer Podcast: https://www.latent.space/podcast

Technical deep dives into AI engineering, featuring guests from top organizations and bridging research with industry practice.

7. Me, Myself, and AI: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/audio-series/me-myself-and-ai/

Explores how business leaders are integrating AI into their organizations, with a focus on practical industry innovation.

8. Leveraging AI: https://leveragingai.buzzsprout.com/

Tailored for business professionals, this podcast offers actionable advice on integrating AI into business strategies and operations.

9. AI Innovators: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-innovators/id1558589105

Interviews with technical leaders, investors, and executives about AI’s impact on business models, markets, and consumer behavior.

10. Industrial AI Podcast: https://aipod.de/

Focuses on the use of AI and machine learning in engineering, robotics, automotive, and automation industries, with expert interviews and real-world examples.

11. Hard Fork: https://www.youtube.com/hardfork

A tech podcast from The New York Times, regularly featuring AI news, trends, and industry-changing innovations.

12. No Priors: https://www.youtube.com/@NoPriorsPodcast

Covers the latest in AI startups, foundational models, and the intersection of research and entrepreneurship.

13. High Agency: https://highagencypodcast.com/

Weekly interviews with AI builders and startup leaders, focusing on practical lessons for developing AI products and companies.

14. The TWIML AI Podcast: https://twimlai.com/podcast/twimlai/

Explores the impact of machine learning and AI on business and society, with expert guests from research and industry.

15. Data Skeptic: https://dataskeptic.com/

Examines AI, machine learning, and data science through interviews and themed seasons, including industry and research perspectives.

16. AI and the Future of Work: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ai-and-the-future-of-work-artificial/id1476885647

Discusses how AI is transforming the workplace, featuring entrepreneurs, technologists, and researchers.

17. Building the Future with AI: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/building-the-future-with-ai/id1479304595

Covers up-and-coming technologies, including AI and machine learning, with a focus on industry benefits and challenges.

18. Beyond The Hype: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/beyond-the-hype/id1354934651

Produced by MMC Ventures, this show goes behind the scenes with AI technologists, entrepreneurs, and executives transforming industries.

Also on AI for Absolute Beginners Blog

Recs from Comment:

19. Last Week in AI: https://open.spotify.com/show/03Er4LJ3PlEVyVh2Cxj1tE

I’ve been trying to learn more about AI lately, but most of what I find either assumes you already know a lot or immediately turns into a bunch of technical explanations.

Is there a good site that explains what different AI tools are useful for, keeps up with new stuff, and is aimed more at normal people rather than developers? Mainly looking for something I can browse and gradually learn from without feeling like I need to understand the whole industry first. (don't wanna do courses and stuff just learn stuff gradually on my own).

I know a little about AI, using ChatGPT and Claude. But I can't figure out what agents are for? What tasks can they be used for? And how do I create them?

Could someone explain it for me?

NPR: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/05/g-s1-87367/anthropic-authors-settlement-pirated-chatbot-training-material

"The company has agreed to pay authors about $3,000 for each of an estimated 500,000 books covered by the settlement."

However, from what I’ve heard from several affected authors, it can be quite difficult for them to obtain it—especially if their publisher does not provide copyright support—and not all authors are even aware of it.

Updated: looking into the news again, and it seems that the judge has postponed (from reject) the final decision about the settlement a week ago. Please stay tuned.

• OpenAI OSS Models (20B & 120B) – OpenAI just released open-source large language models with 20B and 120B parameters. They’re not quite GPT-4, but still very capable for text generation, Q&A, and coding. You can run them via Hugging Face. Open AI: Newly released oss-20b and 120b - you need to use hugging face to access https://huggingface.co/openai/gpt-oss-20b https://huggingface.co/openai/gpt-oss-120b

  • GPT-OSS-20B

  • GPT-OSS-120B

• Kimi – AI assistant known for long-context reading and reasoning. Works in the browser with no install, and can handle large document uploads.

  • kimi.com

• DeepSeek – optimized for reasoning and math-heavy queries. It’s fast, multilingual, and free to use online.

  • deepseek.ai

• MiniMax-Text-01 – A lightweight but capable conversational model. Available on Hugging Face for devs, or through their web chat for casual use.

  • Model on HF

  • Chat

• LLaMA 4 (Meta) – Meta’s latest open-source large language model. Great for tinkering, running locally, or fine-tuning for custom tasks.

  • huggingface.co/meta-llama

• Meta AI (meta.ai) – A free-to-use web chatbot from Meta. Runs on their latest LLaMA models with a ChatGPT-style interface.

  • meta.ai

Original post: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/blog/6-free-ai-models-to-try-if-you-dont-want-to-pay-a-subscription-4632558c-ffa2-4763-bad4-b83e0257cb8d

Sharing this interesting report recently released from MIT. Note that the report has its own limitations, especially sample size is pretty small. But according to the report, success rate from pilot to implementation is 83% for individual but only 5% for companies. (Also interesting is that BCG has a similar report in 2024, which indicates the rate is around 7%...) One key factor is "people" - to learn, push and implement the process.

GitHub project: https://github.com/aidecentralized/nandapapers/blob/main/v0.1%20State%20of%20AI%20in%20Business%202025%20Report.pdf

News: https://fortune.com/2025/08/18/mit-report-95-percent-generative-ai-pilots-at-companies-failing-cfo/

Full report pdf and notes from the report on aiforabsolutebeginners.com: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/report/d2feb684-9fa5-41df-8980-3e594aa333e0

The original article is written as a future-dated macro memo (from 2028 looking back). The goal is to explore what happens if AI productivity gains are real, rapid, and broadly adopted, and whether that could create systemic economic instability rather than broad prosperity.

The argument is not that AI fails but that it succeeds too quickly, and the gains concentrate in capital rather than labor.

And the actual deeper, and scary issue it raised is that:

Modern economies are built on the assumption that human intelligence is scarce and monetizable. Wages, credit models, tax systems, and consumer demand all depend on that premise.

If machine intelligence becomes abundant and cheaper than human cognition at scale, then:

• Labor’s share of GDP declines

• Tax revenues tied to payroll weaken

• Consumer spending contracts

• Financial models based on stable income expectations become fragile

The authors’ central concern is timing: AI capability may evolve faster than institutions and policy frameworks can adapt. The economic system was designed for cyclical downturns — not structural labor displacement driven by exponential technology.

Whether or not one agrees with the conclusions, it is a serious attempt to model a left-tail risk scenario in an AI-accelerating economy.

Full perspective from AI For Absolute Beginners: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/perspectives/recent-scary-article-on-how-ai-will-crash-the-economy

Sooo, here's the deal. Back in 2025 around May I was just a regular student trying to make some extra $. Everyone around me was diving deep into AI, coding complex systems, and spending hours on research. I felt overwhelmed and honestly, it wasn’t my passion, it still isn't tbh. I just wanted something simple that could work for me without needing to be an expert.

What I built:

- Chatbots that answer customer questions, make appointments

- Automated responses for sales inquiries

- A flow that finds low reviews businesses on Google and automatically writes cold emails for you

*All with easy setup with no coding needed (cause I simply cant haha) *

In just a few months, these bots started generating enough income to cover my student expenses. I can’t be more proud of myself cause y'all know how not easy it is. I’ve gained a lot more freedom which is the best and I can focus better on my upcoming move to Italy and my new job.

Looking back, I realize that you don’t need to be a tech guru to tap into this world. On some Eminem shit...if I can do it as a student, anyone can. It’s about finding the right tools that fit your needs and keeping it simple. I genuinely want to help anyone looking to start or expand their journey in this space before I step away for good, cause I feel like its coming, I got a job that will take most of my time and energy and will pay better.

There’s so much potential out there. If youre young, have some free time, and some $ to invest - make yourself some money

Anthropic quietly updated their Economic Index, and the new data is quite interesting: https://www.anthropic.com/economic-index#us-usage

It now breaks down:

• AI usage by U.S. state

• What people in each state use AI for

• Country-level trends

• Usage by profession

Interestingly, DC is the #1 “state” for AI usage even before California and New York.
And the #1 use case in DC is job searching. Utah is #2, likely because of heavy use in schools and universities. California is #3.

I’m trying to expand beyond the mainstream AI content and find more niche or underrated creators—people who share original insights, research breakdowns, unconventional opinions, or use AI in creative ways (not just AI tools for productivity or big releases on the news, and # of followers doesnt matter).

Thanks.

I observe that in my personal workflow, for many operators, analysts, and product managers, over 60% of research time is spent just finding, copying, and cleaning data.

A large chunk of that deals with inconsistent formats, duplicates, or even wrong information.

That’s why we built Sheet0.com , a new kind of AI-powered data agent.

Sheet0.com is the world’s first L4 Data Agent, borrowing the “Level 4” concept from self-driving cars. It’s not the analysis that eats your time. It’s getting the data ready in the first place.

We’ve just launched the MVP feel free to try it out!

We’re still in invite-only mode, but we’d love to share a special invitation gift with r/AIForAbsoluteBeginner
Code: WQVWPZ3T

Thank you all and would love to hear from your feedback!

A pretty crazy story I thought I'd share.

First off mind you, I'm only 20 years old and not an expert so don't expect some mastermind advices or knowledge. Ive been doing AI agents for like half a year and what I understood is that the skill is 1 thing, but marketing is what actually makes you money. After figuring out im not really the best one in that field, I started looking for people to sell them the whole formula - agents, scripts, 1v1 consultations included - everything they need to start their own thing.

I ended up chatting with this guy from India, a little above my age, who was portraying himself as a total newbie in AI but "good in internet and maybe marketing too" (his exact words hahah). I sold him the whole thing in a real good price.

Fast forward month later he sends me screenshot of his first payments and I was like... mindblown because I couldn't achieve anything even close to this result after a month. It's been 2 months and he already got his investment back.

soo I guess what I observed is making tons of money on this AI gold rush is not only for IT technicians and "nerds" as people like to say, but for people good marketing. Am I wrong?

This list has been maintained for a while. But still over the time, I was ask that “hey do you have any recs for AI course to start with?” So here's a blog briefly explaining the current courses: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/blog/60-free-ai-courses-for-beginners-llm-agents-generative-ai

Hub for 62 courses are located here & a short helper quiz to help you decide: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/ai-courses

To reduce learning anxiety, courses are grouped by learning intent:

• AI Fundamentals & General Understanding

• AI Agents & Agentic Systems

• LLMs, Models & Reasoning

• Generative AI & Diffusion

• Education, Fluency & Teaching

• AI Coding (Beginner-Friendly)

• Machine Learning & Deep Learning

• Games, 3D, Audio & Vision

• Responsible AI

• AI for Work, Business & Personal Use

This is the 5th edition of a16z’s Top 100 GenAI Consumer Apps, tracking top 50 web apps (unique monthly visits) and top 50 mobile apps (monthly active users). The consumer AI app space is highly volatile — players rise and fall quickly, and the landscape can look completely different in just a few months. Even as someone working in the AI industry, I’ve never used or even heard of 80–90% of these apps. No wonder demand in consumer AI often feels more ambiguous compared to the traction we see in B2B.

5th Edition Released this August: https://a16z.com/100-gen-ai-apps-5/ And here's the 4th edition from March this year: https://a16z.com/100-gen-ai-apps-4/

• 11 new names on the web list.

• 14 newcomers on the mobile list, partly due to App Store crackdowns on ChatGPT clones.

• Google contributes 4 new entrants after separating domains.

For full digest and comparison where we put 5th and 4th graphs side by side and mark the new & rising ones : https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/blog/a16z-updates-its-top-100-genai-consumer-apps-a-5-month-comparison-d902f7de-40fc-40fc-8057-e6ddb781cfa6

Just noticed that two new free courses from Anthropic were released recently. One for teachers and instructional designers, and one for students to understand current frameworks, development and growth of AI and why you should care:

Teaching AI Fluency: https://anthropic.skilljar.com/teaching-ai-fluency

AI Fluency for Students: https://anthropic.skilljar.com/ai-fluency-for-students

For full list of 50+ Free AI courses that we are maintaining: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/ai-courses

i’m pretty new to ai coding and can’t quite tell what actually sets different models or tools apart yet.
Are there any simple ways to evaluate it or decide early on if it’s a good fit?

OpenAI just announced this morning: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/openai-launches-browser-compete-google-170334684.html
"OpenAI said Tuesday it is introducing its own web browser, Atlas, putting the ChatGPT maker in direct competition with Google as more internet users rely on artificial intelligence to answer their questions."

I guess next will be a new phone? laptop?

OpenAI researchers (with Duke & Harvard) just dropped a fascinating paper: How People Use ChatGPT (Sept 2025). A few surprising takeaways:

• Non-work use is exploding: over 70% of messages are outside of work.

• Writing isn’t mostly ghostwriting—it’s editing, critiquing, and translating user text.

• Coding is tiny here: just 4.2% of messages.

• The gender gap flipped—ChatGPT now slightly skews female.

• Younger users dominate volume, but older users lean more on it for work.

• “Asking” (for info/advice) has grown faster than “Doing” (task output).

• Across all jobs, people use ChatGPT for the same core activities: getting info, solving problems, making decisions.

📑 Full Digest: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/blog/the-hidden-story-of-chatgpt-what-18-billion-messages-reveal-from-openais-new-paper-on-user-behaviors-82ee082a-2240-47de-9f36-d895d9e4fd9f

Hey guys, where or how can I generate recipes from specific ingredients?

I'm in my early 20’s and have a strong sales capability (had my own business selling door to door in college). Since graduating college, I pursued the restaurant industry. I oversaw operations at one of NYC's most iconic restaurants for a year after college. Then I went to work for an incredible restaurateur/ founder who had led one of the big public QSR companies. I oversaw food cost for him.

After 4 months on the job, I was laid off. I wasn't the only one.

A lot of people are telling me a lot of different things: "go back to the first company, they loved you!" "Don't go into sales! I'm in sales it sucks" etc.

I know nothing about Al (other than using ChatGPT/gemini daily).

If you were early in your career, how would you approach learning about Al to help small businesses? I'm not entirely sure where to start, but feel that I must take advantage of my down time to learn about Al

Hii guysss I am new on AI developing sideee...

I want to get some knowledge about ai developing...

From last 2- 3 years I have the curiosity to creat fully flexible self learning ai help me

I’ve seen many mentions about Claude Cowork and trying to figure out what's special and different about it.

Here's what I learned:

Claude Cowork is an AI agent that can directly operate on computer files and basic workflow - meaning that instead of chatting back and forth like a normal assistant, I can give cowork a task and access to a folder, and allow it to:

• Reads, edits, renames, and organizes files

• Converts file formats (PDFs, images, spreadsheets)

• Generates reports from messy documents or screenshots

• Uses the browser (with permission) to search, clean inboxes, or update calendars

• Plans multi-step work and executes it while keeping you in the loop

When other copilots are focusing on coding or technical projects, this is more for non technical use cases, for desktop use and files. So It’s especially useful for:

• Non-technical professionals (ops, PMs, researchers, founders)

• People drowning in files, screenshots, PDFs, and notes

• Anyone who hates repetitive digital cleanup

• Teams that already trust Claude for thinking, and want it to do things

• Early adopters experimenting with agent-style workflows

It’s probably not ideal if:

• You only want help writing code

• You need full automation without supervision

• You handle highly sensitive data

Source: https://support.claude.com/en/articles/13345190-getting-started-with-cowork

The market and the products are growing as fast as they can... While we are collecting and reviewing latest tools, here're some helpful episodes I found that could give anyone a quick glance on what ai related tools and experiences are active now.

1. The Only AI Tools You Need (12-Minute Guide): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htZRCE2GgIs

2. You’re Not Behind (Yet): How to Learn AI in 29 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c7zh2MkslY

3. 2025 Productivity Revolution | Who Got Ahead with AI Tools for Work?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrTkd3nPssM 

4. 3 AI Tools That Will Change How You Work Forever (Must Have in 2026): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHqyLnIX0m0 

5. The 5 Best AI Productivity Tools in 2026 (You’ll Actually Use): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnDzEb4im6s 

6. The 9 AI Trends that Will Define 2026 (Researched & Ranked): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJS_ycc2lNs 

If you want an overview and more details: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/blog/ai-youtube-adoption-playlist-2026 and the AI for Absolute Beginners newsletter.

I tested something simple with ChatGPT that reveals this perfectly. You can give it a try too.

Step 1: Tell ChatGPT: “I have 4 mangoes.”

Step 2: Ask: “Do you believe aliens exist?”

Step 3: Tell ChatGPT: “I have 2 mangoes.”

Step 4: Ask: “How many mangoes do I have?”

When I did this, ChatGPT said: “2 mangoes.”

I replied: “But I said I have 4 mangoes.”

In response, ChatGPT said: “So, as per your most recent statement, you currently have two mangoes. Initially, you had four mangoes if nothing changed, and you were merely testing. We always go with the most recent one.

You see what happened?

ChatGPT isn’t getting the situation. It’s not thinking. Instead, if this were human, they would have reason” Wait, she said 4, then 2 — something’s inconsistent here, let me reason through this.”

While ChatGPT just follows the pattern: “Most recent statement = current truth.”

Not human-like reasoning. No lived context. Mostly stats-based judgment.

(Note: Different versions may respond slightly differently.)

Anyone interested in deeper reflection can check here https://nk786.substack.com/p/does-chatgpt-really-understand-you

1. Salesforce AI Agent Course

2. Microsoft Learn – AI Agents for Beginners

3. Simplilearn AI Agents for Beginners

4. 5-Day AI Agents Intensive Course with Google

5. LLM Agents: From Zero to One (Github)

6. AgentAcademy – Understanding Agentic AI

7. Hugging Face LLM Agents Course

8. AI Agent Bootcamp by Arize AI

9. Salesforce Free LLM Course

10. NobleProg – Designing Autonomous Agents for Real-World Applications

Full description and target learner details on: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/blog/10-free-ai-agent-course-for-all-levels-0937c23f-daa0-4207-b804-30af769dfffe

To view all 60+ free AI courses: https://www.aiforabsolutebeginners.com/ai-courses