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There are 6 modules in this course
This long course equips you with practical knowledge and hands-on skills required to design, architect, and optimize autonomous AI agents that solve multi-step tasks reliably, efficiently, and responsibly. You will study reward-design and reinforcement-learning foundations to translate business objectives into robust reward signals, while learning to evaluate ethical, legal, and societal impacts of agent decision policies. The course covers competing reasoning-loop architectures (e.g., ReAct and Reflexion), modular agent component design with clear APIs, and search and planning strategies (A*, beam search, and heuristic augmentation). You will also practice feature engineering and model-interpretability methods to expose spurious correlations and produce explainable agent behaviors. Finally, the course guides you to make strategic modeling choices—such as fine-tuning large models versus training smaller task-specific models—and to package reproducible, reusable ML pipelines for agent subsystems. Throughout the course, practical labs and engineering-focused examples emphasize production-readiness, modularity, and trustworthiness.
This module is for professionals and data scientists aiming to build responsible AI. As AI reshapes business, balancing performance with ethics is vital. This course provides a deep dive into reinforcement learning, teaching you to craft reward functions that align with corporate goals and global regulations like GDPR. Through hands-on labs and real-world case studies, you’ll learn to identify biases and implement fair governance. By bridging theory and practice, the program empowers you to lead initiatives that prioritize accountability, ensuring your AI systems deliver immense value without compromising integrity or public trust.
What's included
6 videos2 readings3 assignments1 ungraded lab
Show info about module content
6 videos•Total 40 minutes
Why Ethical AI Rewards Matter?•6 minutes
What Is a Reward Function?•6 minutes
How to Code a Basic Reward Function?•8 minutes
The Real-World Cost of Algorithmic Bias•6 minutes
What are Ethical Frameworks & GDPR?•8 minutes
How to Conduct a Bias Audit?•6 minutes
2 readings•Total 12 minutes
A Successful Chatbot Reward Strategy•7 minutes
Deep Dive into the AI Bias Lawsuit•5 minutes
3 assignments•Total 65 minutes
AI Agent Policy Synthesis and Ethical Justification•30 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Scenario Challenge: The Overly-Efficient Chatbot•20 minutes
Hands-On Learning: Formative Quiz: Bias and GDPR Compliance•15 minutes
1 ungraded lab•Total 40 minutes
Reward Scheme Optimization Lab•40 minutes
Architect Reusable AI Agent Systems
Module 2•3 hours to complete
Module details
This module is for engineers transitioning from single-purpose bots to scalable, modular architectures. You’ll master advanced system design to build maintainable AI that evolves with business needs. The curriculum focuses on evaluating reasoning loops like ReAct and Reflexion through data-driven A/B testing. Through hands-on labs, you will apply software engineering best practices to develop reusable components—Planner, Memory, and Executor—using typed API contracts. By the end, you’ll be equipped to design and document a complete Python package of agent components, ready for seamless integration into high-value production environments.
What's included
4 videos3 readings3 assignments2 ungraded labs
Show info about module content
4 videos•Total 24 minutes
When Good Agents Go Bad?•7 minutes
How-To: Run a Data-Driven Agent Comparison?•5 minutes
The Monolith vs. The Micro-Agent•6 minutes
How-To: Define a Clear API Contract in Python?•6 minutes
3 readings•Total 15 minutes
ReAct vs. Reflexion: A Tale of Two Architectures•5 minutes
Optimize Agentic AI: Algorithms for Peak Performance
Module 3•3 hours to complete
Module details
This module is focused on building fast, scalable, and responsive systems. Recognizing that speed is as vital as intelligence, this program equips engineers to diagnose and resolve critical performance bottlenecks. You will master optimization techniques, replacing brute-force methods with sophisticated algorithms like beam search. Through hands-on labs, you’ll apply Big-O notation to analyze multi-tool reasoning pipelines and use profilers to pinpoint slowdowns. By learning to implement optimizations—such as indexing to reduce complexity from O(n^2) to O(log n)—you’ll gain the technical expertise to justify engineering decisions through professional proposals.
What's included
4 videos4 readings3 assignments2 ungraded labs
Show info about module content
4 videos•Total 23 minutes
A* vs. Beam Search: Choosing the Right Tool•7 minutes
How to Implement Beam Search in Python?•6 minutes
A Visual Guide to Big-O Notation•5 minutes
How to Profile Code and Find a Bottleneck?•6 minutes
Optimizing a Planner with Beam Search •60 minutes
From Quadratic to Indexed: Kill the O(n²) Bottleneck•15 minutes
Hybrid AI Search Workflows
Module 4•3 hours to complete
Module details
This module is for engineers and data scientists aiming to build intelligent, factually reliable search systems. While generative AI excels at reasoning, it often hallucinates; traditional search is accurate but lacks context. This program teaches you to architect hybrid workflows that ground LLMs with verifiable data. You will move beyond basic prompting to design and optimize systems for performance and cost. Through hands-on labs, you’ll master parameter tuning and modularizing code for production-ready CI/CD pipelines. By the end, you’ll be equipped to deploy trustworthy, context-aware AI applications that deliver reliable results at scale.
What's included
5 videos4 readings3 assignments2 ungraded labs
Show info about module content
5 videos•Total 30 minutes
Designing an Effective Prompt Template•5 minutes
Evaluating Model Output with a Rubric•6 minutes
The Best of Both Worlds•7 minutes
Architecting a Sequential Hybrid Workflow•7 minutes
Turning a Script into a Python Module•6 minutes
4 readings•Total 24 minutes
What is a Generative Search Workflow?•6 minutes
How-To: Building an Evaluation Framework•5 minutes
What is a Hybrid Algorithmic Workflow?•5 minutes
How-To: Modularizing Your Workflow for CI•8 minutes
3 assignments•Total 65 minutes
Implement a Complete Hybrid Search Pipeline•30 minutes
Knowledge Check: Prompt and Evaluation Scenarios•5 minutes
Build and Evaluate a Generative Search•20 minutes
Build a Modular Hybrid Search Workflow•25 minutes
Engineer and Explain AI Model Decisions
Module 5•4 hours to complete
Module details
This module is aimed for ML professionals who prioritize trust and accountability. In modern AI, high accuracy is insufficient; you must justify model outputs and mitigate harmful biases. This program teaches you to combine advanced feature engineering with model interpretability for ethical deployment. Through hands-on training, you will transform unstructured chat logs into model-ready tensors using Python, scikit-learn, TF-IDF, and embedding aggregation. You’ll then deconstruct "black box" models using SHAP to diagnose misclassifications and flag spurious correlations. By the end, you’ll develop an AI Model Decision Toolkit, equipping you to deliver stakeholder-ready reports that ensure transparent, reliable production AI.
What's included
7 videos3 readings3 assignments1 ungraded lab
Show info about module content
7 videos•Total 47 minutes
From Chaos to Clarity: The Need for Feature Engineering•5 minutes
Core Techniques for Processing Text Data•7 minutes
Building a Preprocessing Pipeline in Python•7 minutes
When Good Models Make Bad Decisions•6 minutes
Understanding Model Decisions with SHAP•7 minutes
How to Run SHAP on Misclassified Data•8 minutes
Presenting Your Findings to Stakeholders•7 minutes
3 readings•Total 30 minutes
The Foundation of Feature Engineering•10 minutes
An Introduction to Interpretable Machine Learning•10 minutes
Structuring Your Interpretability Report•10 minutes
Detecting Spurious Correlations with SHAP•60 minutes
Optimize AI: Build Reusable Model Pipelines
Module 6•2 hours to complete
Module details
This is a module for engineers and data scientists focusing on scalable, maintainable workflows. Beyond simple model selection, this program teaches you to build standardized, reusable pipelines that accelerate development and ensure consistency. You will strategically evaluate trade-offs between large pre-trained models and efficient, custom alternatives, balancing performance with inference speed and cost. Through hands-on labs, you’ll master modular construction using Scikit-learn, emphasizing best practices for model management and versioning. By the end, you will transition from ad-hoc development to a systematic, pipeline-driven approach, essential for deploying robust, production-ready AI solutions.
What's included
3 videos2 readings3 assignments2 ungraded labs
Show info about module content
3 videos•Total 16 minutes
Comparing Model Inference•6 minutes
Why Standardize? The Reproducibility Crisis•5 minutes
Building a Scikit-learn Pipeline•5 minutes
2 readings•Total 15 minutes
Understanding the Size-Performance Trade-Off•8 minutes
The Scikit-learn Pipeline Object•7 minutes
3 assignments•Total 42 minutes
Project: Model Analysis and Pipeline Implementation•30 minutes
Coursera brings together a diverse network of subject matter experts who have demonstrated their expertise through professional industry experience or strong academic backgrounds. These instructors design and teach courses that make practical, career-relevant skills accessible to learners worldwide.
Is Building and Optimizing AI Agent Workflows suitable for learners without prior ML experience?
This course is advanced and assumes foundational ML knowledge and programming ability. Learners without that background should first consider introductory ML or Python courses to gain the most from the hands-on engineering labs.
What hands-on work is included in Building and Optimizing AI Agent Workflows?
The course includes practical labs focused on reward design, modular agent engineering, hybrid search workflows, feature engineering from logs, and pipeline templating. Labs emphasize reproducibility and producing engineering artifacts suitable for a technical portfolio.
Which tools and frameworks will I use in this course?
The curriculum explains concepts and includes engineering-focused examples. Specific tooling and lab environments (e.g., experiment tracking, pipeline libraries, and model-serving frameworks) were not exhaustively listed in the document; please confirm preferred tools and versions so instructors can align labs and exercises.
When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?
To access the course materials, assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience when you enroll in a course. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid. The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.
What will I get if I subscribe to this Certificate?
When you enroll in the course, you get access to all of the courses in the Certificate, and you earn a certificate when you complete the work. Your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile.