Remote makes its AI training course free to workers

Remote has released its internal AI training course to the public for free. The programme was previously used to train more than 2,000 employees.

The course, AI for Actual Work, was developed by co-founders Job van der Voort and Marcelo Lebre for workers across functions including payroll, legal, customer experience and sales. It is designed for people with varying levels of familiarity with AI and requires no prior technical knowledge.

The move comes as employers face pressure to turn widespread interest in AI into practical use across their workforces. Research cited by Remote found that only 20% of leaders believe their workforce is genuinely ready to use AI, while Gartner has warned that businesses can mistake access to AI tools for effective adoption.

Course structure

The training is organised into five stages covering basic concepts, tool selection, building AI agents, combining data with deployment, and extending AI use across work. User progress is saved automatically, allowing participants to complete the course at their own pace.

Alongside instruction on use cases, the programme includes guidance on responsible AI use. This covers identifying risks, protecting data and applying human judgment throughout the process. It also encourages participants to ask whether AI is suitable for a task and whether it improves the quality of work rather than just its speed.

Remote first built the course for internal use and rolled it out to staff ranging from payroll accountants and lawyers to technical teams. After the rollout, AI usage across the business increased 52-fold in six months.

That result appears to have shaped the public launch. Remote began receiving requests from organisations facing similar questions about AI skills and day-to-day adoption to make the training available more widely.

Skills gap

The release reflects a broader shift among employers from experimenting with AI tools to raising workforce competence. Many businesses now have access to chatbots, coding assistants and automation software, but a common challenge is teaching staff when to use those systems, how to frame prompts and what information should not be shared.

For companies in regulated or sensitive areas such as payroll and legal work, those questions can be especially important. Staff may need to balance efficiency gains with confidentiality, data-handling rules and the limits of machine-generated output.

Remote, which operates in payroll and employment infrastructure, has framed the course as a practical rather than technical introduction. The material is intended to help employees integrate AI into everyday work regardless of role.

Van der Voort said the company wanted to remove barriers that often make AI training inaccessible to non-specialists.

"AI is now a part of how we work. Ignoring it is like trying to ignore the internet in the late 1990s. Yet many people are worried about falling behind. Most AI training starts with the false assumption that people already understand complex terminology and models. AI literacy is now a basic work skill, and the sooner people are able to develop it, the more agency they have over how their work changes. This is why it was so important for us to create a course that assumes no prior knowledge and teaches all employees regardless of their professional background. If you know how to use a web browser, you can get started on this course," said Job van der Voort, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Remote.

The public release also highlights how some companies are beginning to package internal operational practices as external resources. In this case, Remote is using a training system built for its own employees to address wider concern around AI literacy in the workplace.

The central message is that access to AI tools alone does not ensure effective adoption. The emphasis instead is on equipping staff to decide when AI is appropriate, what safeguards are needed and how to apply it in routine business processes.