Build LLM-First Systems: When to Prompt, RAG, Fine-Tune, or Deploy Agents

Learn what to use, when—and why It works

  • Learn to Use LLMs for Your Domain

    Understand how these models work, how to compare them, how to interact with them, and when to use them. Get insights into “agents” (workflows), domain-specific projects with practical case studies to help choose the best solution for a given scenario (tailored to you).

  • Understand the Core LLM Developer Toolkit

    Adopt customization, databases, retrieval, frameworks, fine-tuning, evaluations, and more into your daily workflows: the core skills needed to customize LLMs to specific industries and tasks and to improve reliability and usability.

  • Turn Your Ideas into AI-powered Products

    Gain actionable insights, understand how to replicate this success in your own context, and develop the intuition for techniques like distillation, quantization, RLHF, and robust defenses against prompt-hacking to ensure reliable deployments.

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Course curriculum

The curriculum includes five 2-hour sessions to teach you how to move from a basic prompt to a full production rollout

    1. Foundational Knowledge and Using LLMs

    1. Building on Top of LLMs

    1. Evaluations

    1. Orchestrating Agent-Based Solutions

    1. Guardrails, Advanced Techniques, Optimizations and Monitoring

About this course

  • $299 $199
  • 5 In-depth Sessions

Dreaming of turning your ideas into AI-powered products?

Learn what's needed for large-scale deployment

Get Lifetime Access to your AI Engineer Stack

What's Inside This Self-paced Course?

Master the fundamentals, RAG, evaluation, multi-step agent workflows, and large-scale language-model optimization.

  • AI Theory 101 & Limitations of LLMs – Understand how LLMs process information, their strengths, and their weaknesses, so you can use them effectively and avoid common pitfalls.

  • Using ChatGPT – Learn how to integrate ChatGPT into your workflows and start building functional LLM solutions immediately.

  • Design an End-to-End Chain – Craft advanced prompts, set up RAG, and fine-tune models on your domain data.

  • Measure What Matters – Evaluate quality and safety with automated metrics backed by a human-in-the-loop validation cycle.

  • Orchestrate Agent-based Workflows – Build multi-step agents that solve real-world problems while staying fast and cost-effective.

  • Master Optimization, Safety, and Monitoring – Apply distillation, quantization, RLHF, and robust defenses against prompt-hacking to ensure reliable deployments.

  • Certification, community support, and lifetime access

Industry Leaders on the Course

“This is the most comprehensive textbook to date on building LLM applications, and helps learners understand everything from fundamentals to the simple-to-advanced building blocks of constructing LLM applications. The application topics include prompting, RAG, agents, fine-tuning, and deployment - all essential topics in an AI Engineer's toolkit.”

Jerry Liu, Co-founder and CEO of LlamaIndex

“A truly wonderful resource that develops understanding of LLMs from the ground up, from theory to code and modern frameworks. Grounds your knowledge in research trends and frameworks that develop your intuition around what's coming. Highly recommend.”

Pete Huang, Co-founder of The Neuron

“An incredible survey of all the real-world problems one encounters when trying to productionize an LLM, as well as multiple solutions to each roadblock. Highly recommend this!”

Nick Singh, Founder of DataLemur.com & Author of Ace the Data Science Interview

“A comprehensive and well-rounded resource that covers all the fundamentals of LLMs with a well-struck balance between theory and code[…]”

Tina Huang, Founder of Lonely Octopus, YouTuber, Ex-Meta

“It covers the foundational aspects of LLMs as well as advanced use-cases like finetuning LLMs, Retrieval Augmented Generation and Agents. This will be valuable to anyone looking to dive into the field quickly and efficiently.”

Jeremy Pinto, Senior Applied Research Scientist at Mila

Who Is This Course For?

We are helping you build the imagination and intuition for what is possible with LLMs!

This course is specifically designed as a 1 day Bootcamp for Software Professionals (language agnostic). Although the course has a “for developers” focus, it’s relevant to everyone! No prior knowledge is required. A foundation in Python helps, but isn’t essential to benefit from the training. 

We teach the core LLM skills and techniques together with practical tips. This will prepare you to either use LLMs via natural language or explore documentation for LLM model platforms and frameworks in the programming language of your choice and start developing your own customized LLM projects. 

Break Into AI With Tangible Proof of Skill

Learn the full LLM pipeline—RAG, agents, evaluation, and optimization. In a crowded AI job market, this is your unfair advantage.

Build Your AI Portfolio Now

What This Certification Course Can Do for You

  • Launch AI Features That Actually Ship

    You’ll understand how to evaluate quality, integrate domain data, and monitor for safety, so your features don’t just work in a demo; they hold up in production.

  • Lead With Confidence in a Post-Prompt World

    Whether you’re guiding a team, building your startup, or upskilling, you’ll develop the mental models and technical fluency to make the big decisions—when to fine-tune, how to scale, and where to push back.

  • Future-Proof Your Career With the LLM Skillset

    In five focused sessions, you’ll gain a skillset that’s already in demand across product, engineering, and research teams—from startups to enterprise.

Course Overview

  • AI Simplified with Hands-On Practice

    Cut through the buzz and understand what AI can actually do for your business, avoiding the common pitfalls of over-promising technologies. Learn AI and Machine Learning in a no-code environment, gaining a clear understanding of how AI and LLMs function.

  • Industry-Specific AI Strategies

    Explore real-world applications and case studies to understand how AI is reshaping your industry. Walk away with a toolkit of real-world AI use cases specific to your industry. You will know how to apply AI to boost efficiency, reduce costs, and drive innovation in your sector.

  • Customized AI Solutions for Your Business

    Understand when and how to tailor AI solutions specifically for your team’s needs, making you a valuable resource in spearheading AI-driven projects. Learn how to use powerful AI tools like ChatGPT to automate tasks, improve customer interactions, and streamline workflows—all without writing a single line of code.

I want to use LLMs in my work—but how do I even know what I need?

That’s the question nearly every smart, motivated learner starts with—and it’s the one this course is built to answer. With so many tools and techniques out there, the real challenge isn’t coding—it’s knowing where to begin. This course gives you a mental map of the LLM landscape: when to use RAG vs. fine-tuning, where agents fit in, and how to break down a use case so you know what to try first. Before you dive deep, this is the clarity that saves you weeks—and helps you build with confidence, not guesswork.

Before you become an expert, become someone who knows what to try first.

Your AI Skillset, 10X’d in 10 Hours

Whether you're solo or leading a team, learn how to build safer, faster, smarter LLM systems—on time and on budget.

Level Up in 5 Sessions

FAQ

  • Is this course paid?

    Yes, it's a paid course with lifetime access

  • Will I get a certificate upon completion?

    Yes, you will receive a Towards AI certificate upon completion.

  • Can I get a discount?

    Yes, there are three ways to receive a discount on our courses. If you're a student, we offer a 50% discount on all courses. Additionally, if you've previously purchased our book or another course, you're eligible for a discount. We also provide a bundle discount for groups of two or more people. For further details or to claim your discount, please email Louis-François at [email protected] for a follow-up.

  • How long does this course take to complete?

    This is a self-paced course, but the average course completion time is 8 hours.

  • Do I need any technical background for this course?

    You do not need to know a specific programming language to take this course but the course is designed for Software Professionals as languages such as Python, Typescript, JavaScript (Node.js), Java, C# and Go are needed to get the most out of LLM Development techniques. Different LLM model platforms and Frameworks vary in which languages they support. Python generally has the broadest compatibility in the LLM ecosystem.

  • What real-world skills will I gain from this course?

    You’ll learn how to implement AI tools like ChatGPT, customize AI solutions for your company, and lead AI-driven projects that improve efficiency and boost profits.

  • Do you have a referral or affiliate program?

    For every referral you provide, you’ll gain access to our exclusive eBook. If you refer three or more people, we’ll send you a physical copy of our book as a thank you! Additionally, we have an affiliate program for individuals with an audience. By joining, you can earn commissions for every successful referral made through your unique affiliate link. Please email Louis-François at [email protected] with proof of referral.

  • Can I take this course within my company?

    Yes we partner with companies to offer this course more broadly to teams at companies and can even customise the content. Please reach out if you want to customise the course or to offer the course to a corporate team.

  • When was this course created? Is it still up to date?

    The course was originally launched in 2025, but we update it every single week with new lessons, tools, and techniques as the AI landscape evolves. You’re not just buying a static course—you’re getting a living resource designed to keep you ahead.

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