Udemy – Local AI Crash Course: Run Models Locally and Do Real Work

Most people assume running real AI means a monthly subscription and an API bill that grows every time you use it. It doesn’t have to. The open models you can download for free today are roughly where the paid models were a year or two ago, and for most everyday work, that is more than enough.

This is a hands-on crash course on running AI models on your own computer. No subscription, no API key, and your data never leaves your machine. By the end, you will have a real model running locally and connected to your actual work, not just a chat window you try once and forget.

We start from nothing and keep it simple. You will learn the four decisions that actually matter:

• Hardware: how to tell exactly what your Mac or PC can run, using a simple memory lookup table.
• Runner: which tool to use (Ollama, LM Studio, or llama.cpp), and why the choice matters less than people fear.
• Model: how to read confusing model names, what quantization and Mixture of Experts mean in plain words, and which models to start with.
• First task: install a runner, run your first model, and put it to work.