OpenAI Academy launched in September 2024 to give people the skills and confidence to use AI in everyday life, with practical training spanning teaching, running a small business, and developing software. Over its first two years, the program reports more than 250 events and more than 4 million people engaged with Academy content, bringing together educators, small business owners, developers, nonprofit leaders, and community members.

The Academy started with a focus on developers and mission-driven organizations working on local problems, then expanded to self-paced courses, practical guides, in-person workshops, and multi-site events called AI Skills Jams. This month it added learning paths for knowledge workers, developers, leaders, educators, and college students; learners take role-relevant courses and earn Academy course badges by passing assessments. The exercises are tied to real tasks: an educator adapting a lesson with ChatGPT, a small business owner building a repeatable process for customer research, or a developer using Codex to plan and implement a change while keeping control of review. Across hundreds of events, OpenAI says the most valuable part of the training is giving people dedicated time and space to try AI tools on work that matters to them, learn from peers, and get coaching from OpenAI mentors.

Partners are central to the programming. OpenAI works with national and local organizations that bring trusted relationships, recruit participants, and shape programs around local work and problems. Together they have run recurring workshops for small business owners, educators, veterans, and nonprofit leaders, as well as larger multi-city events; the AI Skills Jam for K–12 Educators alone brought together more than 1,600 teachers, administrators, and district leaders across eight U.S. cities.

To help more partners lead sessions, OpenAI is piloting the OpenAI Academy Community Trainer Program. Participating organizations nominate staff members to learn the Academy curriculum and how to run a practical workshop: demonstrating useful workflows, helping people apply AI to their own tasks, encouraging peer learning, and supporting participants as they evaluate results. Nominated trainers complete the training and a facilitation assessment before leading Academy sessions. The pilot is designed to let schools, workforce organizations, small-business networks, and community groups build their own capacity to teach AI skills, with the goal that more people will have someone in their community to turn to as needs and tools evolve.

OpenAI says it will keep developing online courses, workshops, and Academy Jams based on what it learns from participants and partners. The stated goal of this next phase is for more people to have opportunities to practice, learn from one another, and build knowledge and confidence as they put AI to work in their everyday lives.