Get started with AI topics

How to get started with an AI free trial

Getting started with AI

AI first rose to prominence in the 1960s with the creation of new programming languages, research, robots—and promises in film and literature of the possibilities and promise of AI. But it quickly became clear that the technology of the day couldn’t deliver on fantasies of machines thinking for themselves and taking over the world (thankfully!).

Today, with the advent of cheap computational power, increasing amounts of inexpensive data storage, and more data to draw from, AI business benefits are finally having an impact on business success. In fact, according to a 2021 report by IDC (PDF), early adopters reported a 39% improvement in customer experience and a 33% improvement in employee efficiency and accelerated innovation with the rollout of AI solutions. It’s time to get started with AI.

If you’re new to AI, we recommend starting with our articles "What is AI?" and "What is Machine Learning?" and exploring the Oracle AI & Data Science Blog to learn more from our data scientists and engineers.

Or, for a deeper dive, we recommend some of our free ebooks, including Lifecycle of Machine Learning Models (PDF).

But the best way to get started with AI is by trying it. We’ve gathered our best tutorials, trials, workshops, and labs so you can practice your AI skills—free.

AI free trials

One way to experiment with AI at no cost to you is with a free trial of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). This is your perfect chance to try OCI Data Science for building, deploying, and managing machine learning models with access to favorite open source libraries and frameworks.

Or, if you don’t have experience as a data scientist, you can try a variety of prebuilt machine learning models, many of which you can custom train. Experiment with natural language processing and computer vision, speech, and anomaly detection models. Launch a fully built digital assistant and connect it to your apps and services.

Oracle offers a free pricing tier for most AI services as well as US$300 in free credits with a trial account to try additional cloud services.


Start your free AI trial today.


AI labs and workshops

There are many free AI and machine learning labs and workshops. For prebuilt models, ideal for developers even without machine learning experience to add to applications, options include the following:

Build the perfect digital assistant workshop

In this workshop, you'll learn how to work with chatbots. When a user engages with the digital assistant, the digital assistant (master chatbot) evaluates the user input and routes the conversation to the appropriate specialized chatbot. You can populate your digital assistant with prebuilt chatbots and with bots you have designed yourself.

Introduction to AI language workshop

Textual data has significant value related to core business activities. Core language processing capabilities include detecting languages, translating content, extracting key elements, classifying intent, and detecting the sentiment expressed in text. Prebuilt models by OCI Language simplify this process. With this workshop, you’ll analyze text with the console and discover how to access the service with OCI command-line interface, Language SDKs, and REST APIs.

Introduction to computer vision workshop

Enterprise image and document data has significant value related to core business activities and their customers. To gain business and customer insights effectively and at scale from this data, vision capabilities are needed. You’ll discover how prebuilt computer vision models make it possible for you to classify images and documents, detect objects, text, and languages, and extract table information from the data.

Get started with anomaly detection AI workshop

Anomaly detection is the identification of rare items, events, or observations in data that differ significantly from the expectation. This can be used for several scenarios including asset monitoring, maintenance, and prognostic surveillance in industries such as energy and water, aviation, and manufacturing. In this workshop, you’ll learn how to train machine learning models for multivariate anomaly detection, explain the results, and iteratively train new models.

Get started with forecasting AI workshop

Forecasting is a common data science problem that aids companies with effective and efficient planning, goal setting, and forecasting future business outcomes such as demand. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Forecasting uses data science and machine learning to deliver high quality and reliable forecasts. Start this workshop to discover how to submit historical data as inline data via endpoints and get forecasts with explainability techniques.
Seattle Sounders FC gets data science in the game with Oracle

The Major League Soccer club uses sports analytics to help improve team performance with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Data Science and OCI’s data lakehouse.

Read the Seattle Sounders FC story

AI reference architecture examples

Starting a new data science project often involves discovering the right idea—and exploring how you can implement it. Look at our reference architectures and use cases to discover new inspiration by learning how companies are implementing AI and machine learning to drive business value and using AI to make an impact.

Anomaly detection for managing assets and predictive maintenance

Use OCI Anomaly Detection to ensure optimal operation of assets while avoiding excess cost and minimizing operational disruptions in smart manufacturing.

Learn about OCI Anomaly Detection

Anomaly detection architecture diagram, description below
Data sources: data is collected from one or more sources. Data collection: data is stored in oci object storage. OCI Anomaly Detection: builds model during the training phase and runs the anomaly detection algorithms during the production phase. Results: The results of the anomaly detection process are sent to one or more apps that consume the data and prepare it for presentation to end users.

Handle user tasks with Oracle Digital Assistant

Improve customer satisfaction and reduce the cost of providing chat-based support with Oracle Digital Assistant’s skill bots.

Learn about Digital Assistant

Digital assistant architecture diagram, description below
Data sources: The user accesses Oracle Digital Assistant from a messaging platform via a channel Data collection: Oracle Digital Assistant determines through dialog what the user wants to do and gathers information to complete the tast OCI Anomaly Detection: If the user needs assitants, the digital assistant transfers the chat session to Oracle RightNow Chat Cloud Service, which then routes the user request to the correct queue based on chat rules Results: An agent who is monitoring the queue from the agent console accepts the request

See all AI reference architectures.

Designing an AI pilot project

designing an ai pilot project

Let’s say you’ve gone through the free trials, workshops, and reference architectures, and you want to get started with an AI pilot project to test what this technology can do for your organization. The key to creating a successful pilot is creating the right combination of data, people, and technology.

A successful pilot should

  1. Solve one of your high-value business challenges using data science and machine learning
  2. Show the business value that data science and AI can bring to the business
  3. Prove technical feasibility with a rapid prototype using your Oracle Cloud credits

We recommend the following steps for a successful AI and machine learning pilot project:

  1. Explore and select a data-driven use case that has the highest potential to deliver value to your business and has a shared desirability from all stakeholders.
  2. Collaboratively create a prototype to test technical feasibility and to build skills and experience using Oracle products during the process.
  3. Take a business-led approach to illustrate operational viability and ensure there’s enough evidence to put the prototype into production and realize the business benefits as quickly as possible.

Contact our sales team if you have questions on getting started with Oracle AI.