Generative AI — An Introduction
Understand how AI actually works — then use it. No coding, no hype, just practical fluency you can put to work immediately.
A hands-on, no-code introduction to generative AI for non-technical professionals. Class 1 covers how language models are built and trained — just enough foundations to use AI confidently, not to build it — then moves straight into prompting, RAG, and multimodal tools. Class 2 moves up the stack: comparing top chat assistants, understanding AI agents, and building no-code automation workflows that connect AI to your email, documents, and apps. You leave with practical tools you can use at work the next morning.
Who it's for — Non-technical professionals — HR, marketing, finance, operations, legal, healthcare, public sector — who want to understand how generative AI works and use it to do their existing job dramatically better. No prior AI knowledge or coding required.
In class you work on a synthetic company corpus — a fictional business modeled on real-world challenges, so you practice on realistic, messy data, not toy examples.
- Explain how large language models are trained and why they sometimes get things wrong — confidently, to a colleague
- Write strong prompts using a repeatable set of principles, and iterate to dramatically better results
- Use RAG to query your own documents — reports, contracts, research papers — with any major chat assistant
- Choose the right chat assistant for a given task across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and others
- Understand what AI agents are and what they can do today — including browser agents that act on the web
- Build a no-code automation workflow (n8n) that connects AI to email, chat, or document tasks
You leave with A set of no-code workflows—an email responder, a customer-chat bot, and a document Q&A assistant.
These aren't demos — they're working agents you build hands-on and tailor to your own role, data, and custom spec.
Email Responder
A no-code automation that reads incoming email and drafts appropriate responses.
Customer-Query Chatbot
A chatbot that fields customer questions automatically.
Document Q&A Automation
An automation that answers questions grounded in your company's documents.
How you build them, class by class
How Generative AI Works
- How language models work and get trained — the mental model you need, without the math
- Why models sometimes get things wrong — and how to work around it
- Prompting principles: a repeatable approach that takes you from weak to strong results
- RAG: upload your own documents and get cited, grounded answers
- Multimodal AI: generate images and podcasts with AI tools
AI Assistants, Agents & Automation
- The top chat assistants compared — and when to use each
- How AI agents work today — including browser agents that act on the web
- No-code automation: email triage, customer chatbots, and document Q&A
- Enterprise AI in the real world: customer support, marketing, sales, and knowledge management
Your hands-on capstone: a practical AI toolkit applied to your own professional context — combining a well-prompted deliverable, a grounded document query, and a working no-code automation. It's the work your certificate is based on, and a foundation you can build on immediately at work.
Your certificate is based on what you build — not attendance.
Ready to build your AI agent?
A small, high-quality cohort for professionals — fully online, hands-on from minute one.