# howtobedigital

> Free, plain-English lessons on the digital and AI skills working adults in the UK were never taught. One lesson, one outcome, one measured time, and one real task on your own machine at the end. No account, no paywall.

## You are not behind. Nobody taught you.

Short lessons on the digital and AI bits of work. Every one states what you will be able to do, tells you who should skip it, and ends with one real task on your own machine.

## Start here

- [Is it safe to put this in?](/learn/ai/is-it-safe-to-put-this-in/) — You want to paste something in and you are not sure you should. 14 minutes.
- [Tell a real message from a fake one](/learn/digital-skills/tell-a-real-message-from-a-fake-one/) — A message came in asking you to do something, urgently. 15 minutes.
- [Ask it something daft and see what happens](/learn/play/ask-it-something-daft/) — You have never used one of these and would rather not start at work. 8 minutes.

## Where are you now

- **Left out** — Somebody at work assumed you already knew how to do this, and you did not want to say. In about a month, the five things you currently ask somebody else to do, you will do yourself.
- **Getting by** — You manage. You are slow, you lose things, and you are never quite sure you did it right. You will stop losing work, and stop guessing whether a message is genuine.
- **Getting going** — You have used one of these tools. You want to be better at it, and safer. You will decide what is safe to hand over, and check what comes back.
- **Leading** — People are asking what the organisation should do, and there is no answer yet. You will be able to answer the question your board is going to ask.

## The numbers

- **8m** UK adults cannot do all eight of the tasks that make up the basic level. — Ipsos for Lloyds Banking Group, *Essential Digital Skills 2025*, Fieldwork 5 March – 2 April 2025 — https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/lloyds-essential-digital-skills-2025
- **35%** of UK businesses with ten or more staff use at least one AI technology. — Office for National Statistics, *Artificial intelligence in UK businesses: 2023 to 2026*, 20 July 2026 — https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/articles/artificialintelligenceinukbusinesses/2023to2026
- **11%** say more than half their workforce has had any training on it. Same release, same base. — Office for National Statistics, *Artificial intelligence in UK businesses: 2023 to 2026*, 20 July 2026 — https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/business/businessservices/articles/artificialintelligenceinukbusinesses/2023to2026

## Explainers

Twenty-six picture-led pages at [/explain/](/explain/): one idea per screen, a big
picture on every screen, under a hundred and twenty words on the whole page. Not
lessons — they are for the moment before a lesson, when you need to see what the
thing actually is.

## Digital Learning Practice

Paid organisational practice after teaching — one behaviour, practice over weeks, a delayed check. Free lessons stay free.

[Digital Learning Practice](/digital-learning-practice/)

## Spaced Learning Practice

For channel partners and enterprise reinforcement — a vendor-neutral retention and transfer layer that sits beside organisational teaching programmes, not instead of free lessons.

[Spaced Learning Practice](/spaced-learning-practice/)