Which program should I choose as a complete beginner? +
Either one, since both assume no prior experience. If you intend to work in UX, choose the AI-Era UX Mastery, because only it produces the portfolio case study employers ask to see. The Sprint is the better pick if you want to sample the field before committing.
Do both programs teach AI? +
Yes, and not as a separate topic. The Sprint introduces where AI helps and where it misleads you. Mastery builds it into all ten modules, so you use it to generate options, to critique your own flows, and to argue against your decisions before anyone else gets the chance. You are never taught to accept its output unchecked.
Are the sessions live or recorded? +
Every session is live and instructor-led. Nothing is pre-recorded. You can ask why a decision was rejected while you are still making it, which is the part a video cannot give you.
What is the real difference in outcome? +
The Sprint gives you understanding. You will know how the process works and be able to take part in it. Mastery gives you evidence: a documented case study showing a problem you researched, the decisions you made, and your reasoning for each one, plus a recorded defence of it.
How much time will I need outside the sessions? +
Plan for roughly an hour of project work between sessions on the Mastery Program. The work is cumulative, so keeping pace matters more than total hours. Falling two checkpoints behind is much harder to recover from than missing a single session.