Adobe and LinkedIn launch free AI skills courses for marketers

Adobe and LinkedIn have launched AI Essentials for Marketers, a global training initiative designed to help marketing professionals build practical AI skills across digital marketing, content and creative, social and communications, and data and analytics.

The courses will be available free on LinkedIn Learning, with additional learning materials, hands-on experiences and customer use cases offered through Adobe Experience League. The programme uses short-form, social-first learning formats, aimed at professionals who need training that fits around existing work rather than long classroom-style sessions.

The initiative is being introduced as AI becomes more common in marketing tasks such as content planning, production, audience targeting, campaign development and data analysis. LinkedIn’s Economic Graph data shows that AI skills are the top area of focus for marketing professionals, while marketing job postings requiring AI literacy skills have more than doubled year-on-year, rising 113%.

Courses organised around marketing functions

AI Essentials for Marketers will include four role-based courses available in 47 languages. The courses are built around marketing functions identified through LinkedIn Economic Graph data and designed by BrandWorks, LinkedIn’s team that provides strategy and creative support to customers.

The programme covers digital marketing, content and creative, social and communications, and data and analytics. Adobe and LinkedIn plan to add new content regularly as AI tools and marketing workflows change.

The training focuses on practical AI use in marketing roles, rather than treating AI literacy as a technical specialisation. Course topics include AI-powered content planning, content creation, audience targeting, and the use of data in agentic workflows, where software systems can complete more complex tasks with varying levels of human direction.

“Marketers are navigating the shift to AI and it is both daunting and exciting,” said Jessica Jensen, Chief Marketing Officer, LinkedIn. “LinkedIn’s labor market report provides insights for marketers to see where the industry is going and to understand the skills they will need to be successful both in their current job and for what’s next in their careers. Together with Adobe, we’re helping make AI skills accessible to every marketer — not just technical specialists — through scalable, practical learning designed for the realities of modern work.”

Certificates add a visible skills layer

Participants who complete the courses will be able to display certificates on their LinkedIn profiles. That gives the programme a visible credential layer for marketers who want to show AI literacy to employers, clients or internal teams.

The initiative builds on Adobe Digital Academy, which has committed US$100 million through donations, scholarships, product access and partnerships. Adobe also points to Experience League, its online learning hub for customers, as part of its wider effort to support marketing, creative and AI literacy.

LinkedIn Learning brings a large existing training catalogue to the partnership, with more than 25,000 courses, including 2,300 focused on AI. The collaboration combines LinkedIn’s professional learning platform and labour-market data with Adobe’s marketing and customer experience software background.

Adobe also cited enterprise adoption of AI across its apps, saying 99% of Fortune 100 companies use AI in an Adobe app. The company named The Estée Lauder Companies, L’Oreal, The National Football League, Newell Brands, Premier League, Prudential Financial, Publicis Groupe and Real Madrid among the brands using its tools.

AI training moves closer to daily marketing work

The programme reflects a skills gap that is becoming harder for marketing teams to avoid. Many organisations are introducing AI into content production, campaign operations and customer experience work, but adoption still depends on whether teams understand where AI is useful, how data should be used, and where human review remains necessary.

By organising the courses around marketing roles, Adobe and LinkedIn are targeting professionals who need to apply AI inside existing functions, not employees moving into specialist AI jobs. For marketing teams, that distinction matters because AI adoption is increasingly tied to day-to-day execution, from planning campaigns to producing content and interpreting customer data.

The main test for the programme will be how practical the training is across real workflows. Vendor-led courses can help marketers understand tools and use cases, but their value depends on whether they also help teams make better decisions about governance, review processes and where automation should stop.