AI Systems: From Prompts to Agents

Course Overview

AI Systems: From Prompts to Agents is a hands-on, three-day training that teaches how modern AI systems actually work—and how to design them properly.

Participants move beyond prompts and chatbots to understand AI as a system: with structure, memory, tools, and clear boundaries. The course starts from first principles and gradually builds toward autonomous agent-based systems, without assuming a technical background for the first two days.

By the end of the course, participants understand how to design reliable AI workflows, reason about agent behavior, and confidently move from ideas to working AI systems.

Delivery: Online or Classroom
Duration: 2 or 3 days (modular)
Audience: Students, professionals, career switchers, aspiring developers

Why This Course?

Most AI courses teach what to type.
This course teaches how AI systems are designed.

Participants will learn:

• Why AI behaves the way it does
• How to design before building
• How memory, tools, and agents actually work
• How to avoid fragile, prompt-only solutions

This course focuses on real systems, real constraints, and real-world thinking.

Course Structure

The course follows a 2 + 1 model:

• Days 1–2: Core foundations. No coding required.
• Day 3: Optional builder day. Python required.

Participants may attend only Days 1–2, or all three days.

Day-by-Day Outline

Day 1 – Understanding AI Systems

Focus: From “AI as magic” to “AI as systems”

Topics covered:

• What modern AI models actually do
• Tokens, context windows, and limitations
• LLM model training process/stages
• Why hallucinations happen
• Prompt engineering
• Context Engineering
• Describing behavior using intent instead of code

Outcome:
Participants understand how AI works and how to think in systems rather than prompts.

Day 2 – MCP, Skills, Agents, Workflows, AI Coding agents, RAG

Focus: Making AI systems useful, safe, and repeatable in real world

Topics covered:

• How AI systems use external knowledge (Retrieval Augmented Generation)
• Building workflows that retrieve and use information, and take action
• Building AI agents
• Introduction to AI coding agents
• Building, and using Skills
• Tools/MCP usage and capability boundaries
• Local vs remote tool capabilities

Outcome:
Participants can design structured AI workflows that use agents and tools responsibly.

Day 3 – Hands on - From Systems to Agents (Optional)

Note: Day 3 is available as an optional add-on for an additional $100. This hands-on builder day gives you direct experience implementing what you learned in Days 1–2, transforming theoretical knowledge into practical coding skills with autonomous AI agents.

Focus: Building autonomous agent-based systems from ground up (requires Python coding knowledge)

Topics covered:

• Agent identity, goals, and planning
• Multi-step reasoning and decision loops
• Tool orchestration and state management
• Designing agents that can act, reflect, and adapt
• Build agents using Agentcore, Strand Agent, and LangChain frameworks

Outcome:
Participants can build and reason about autonomous agents using Python-based systems.

Delivery Mode

• Online (Live, Instructor-Led)
• Classroom (In-Person)

Both formats are fully hands-on and interactive.

Prerequisites

Days 1–2

• No programming experience required
• Comfort using a computer
• Willingness to think critically and experiment

Day 3

• Basic Python knowledge required
  • Variables
  • Lists
  • Functions

Participants do not need to be expert programmers.
They must be comfortable reading simple code.

Hardware & System Requirements

Participants must bring their own laptop.

Supported Operating Systems

• macOS: macOS 12 (Monterey) or newer
• Windows: Windows 10 (64-bit) or newer

These versions support modern Python tooling and local AI development workflows.

Hardware Minimums

• Memory: 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended)
• CPU:
  • Minimum: 4 logical cores
  • Recommended: 6–8 logical cores

Permissions

Administrator permissions are required for:

• Installing Python
• Installing local development tools
• Running local servers

No GPUs are required.

Pricing

• Days 1–2: USD $xx
• Day 3 (Optional): USD $xx

Participants may enroll in:

• Days 1–2 only, or
• The full 3-day program

Who This Course Is For

• Students exploring AI beyond surface-level tools
• Professionals transitioning into AI-related roles
• Developers who want to understand agent systems properly
• Anyone who wants to build AI systems, not just use them