Foundations of AI Agents with Vertex AI

As organizations seek to automate complex tasks, AI agents have emerged as the next frontier in cloud intelligence. Understanding how to orchestrate these autonomous workflows is essential for any modern tech professional. This written course guides you from the fundamental concepts of agentic systems to configuring your own intelligent search and conversational applications. You will learn how to leverage cloud platforms to connect large language models with enterprise data safely and efficiently. What you'll learn: • Understand the core architecture of cloud-based AI agents and cognitive workflows • Explore Vertex AI Agent Builder to create conversational interfaces • Implement Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to ground agents in trusted data sources • Apply prompt engineering best practices to guide agent behavior and decision-making • Design secure integrations that connect your agents to external APIs and databases • Practice evaluating and monitoring agent performance in production environments. Starting with key terminology and foundational definitions, the course walks you through step-by-step written explanations of agent design, tooling, and deployment strategies. This course is designed specifically for beginners, with no prior machine learning or cloud engineering experience required. Start reading today to master the fundamentals of modern cloud-hosted AI agents.