Stanford CS221: Artificial Intelligence: study plan and how long it takes
The Stanford Online playlist is 20 videos and 24.9 hours long. Here's how long it takes at different paces, a week-by-week schedule built from the real videos, and a planner that turns it into your own daily plan.
20 videos · 24.9 hours · Stanford Online
Stanford CS221 (Autumn 2025) is Stanford's broad introduction to AI: machine learning, search, Markov decision processes and reinforcement learning, games, constraint satisfaction, Bayesian networks and logic, plus how these ideas connect to modern AI systems.
It covers far more of AI than a typical ML course, with around 20 lectures of roughly 75 minutes each.
Who it's for: Students and engineers who want a broad, rigorous introduction to AI beyond neural networks.
How long does it take?
The full playlist is 24.9 hours across 20 videos. Here's roughly how many days that is at different daily watch times and speeds, counting video time only:
| Daily time | At 1x | At 1.5x | At 2x |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 min a day | 50 days | 34 days | 25 days |
| 1 h a day | 25 days | 17 days | 13 days |
| 2 h a day | 13 days | 9 days | 7 days |
Make your own schedule
The playlist link is already filled in. Press Plan, set how much time you have each day and your speed, and you'll get a day-by-day schedule with a finish date and a calendar file. It reads the live playlist, so new videos are included.
Week-by-week schedule
A sample plan at 1 hour a day and normal speed, using whole videos so none is split across days. That's 3 weeks in total. For a different pace, start date or speed, use the planner above.
Week 1Videos 1–7 · 8h 45m
Day 1 · 1h 6m
- 1Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 1: Course Overview and AI Foundations1h 6m
Day 2 · 1h 13m
- 2Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 2: Learning I1h 13m
Day 3 · 1h 13m
- 3Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 3: Learning II1h 13m
Day 4 · 1h 12m
- 4Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 4: Learning III1h 12m
Day 5 · 1h 22m
- 5Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 5: Search I1h 22m
Day 6 · 1h 20m
- 6Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 6: Search II1h 20m
Day 7 · 1h 20m
- 7Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 7: Markov Decision Processes1h 20m
Week 2Videos 8–14 · 8h 54m
Day 8 · 1h 18m
- 8Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 8: Reinforcement Learning1h 18m
Day 9 · 1h 14m
- 9Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 9: Policy Gradient1h 14m
Day 10 · 1h 13m
- 10Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 10: Games I1h 13m
Day 11 · 1h 14m
- 11Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 11: Games II1h 14m
Day 12 · 1h 18m
- 12Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 12: Bayesian Networks I1h 18m
Day 13 · 1h 16m
- 13Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 13: Bayesian Networks and Gibbs Sampling1h 16m
Day 14 · 1h 21m
- 14Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 14: Bayesian Networks and Learning1h 21m
Week 3Videos 15–20 · 7h 15m
Day 15 · 1h 13m
- 15Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 15: Logic I1h 13m
Day 16 · 1h 16m
- 16Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 16: Logic II1h 16m
Day 17 · 1h 20m
- 17Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 17: Language Models1h 20m
Day 18 · 1h 12m
- 18Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 18: AI & Society1h 12m
Day 19 · 1h 15m
- 19Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 19: AI Supply Chains1h 15m
Day 20 · 59m
- 20Stanford CS221 | Autumn 2025 | Lecture 20: Fireside Chat, Conclusion59m
Tips for finishing
- Plan two lectures a week and work through the homework on the course site.
- If you've only studied ML, give the search, CSP and logic lectures extra attention; they're the newest material for most people.