Engineering Agentic AI Systems: From Concepts to Practice

Programming experience (preferably Python) and basic mathematics (understanding of functions and plots) are required. Familiarity with basic machine learning concepts such as classification, regression, and neural networks is a plus but not required.

The course is delivered 100% online with pre-recorded video lectures.

Plan to dedicate 12 hours per week for 12 weeks. This includes watching lectures (4-6 hours), completing assignments, and working on projects.

No GPU is required for the course assignments, as you can complete all work using Google Colab for free with a Gmail account. For exploratory work beyond the assignments, GPU hardware remains optional; you can instead use free API keys, run local models via Ollama, or purchase API credits from model providers, meaning a local GPU is only necessary if you specifically wish to run models directly on your laptop.

The course maintains the same rigor as IIIT Hyderabad's on-campus courses. Assignments and exams are intentionally challenging — not as a barrier, but to ensure genuine learning. The course progresses from foundations to production-ready systems, covering both practical implementation and cutting-edge research perspectives.

You must pass the final exam to receive a completion certificate. You can take the exam at most two times.

Adopting a use-case driven approach, you will learn to build applications ranging from simple automated trip planners that book flights and generate tickets to complex software systems that automate entire lifecycles. The course covers essential architectural patterns such as sequential agent chains, master-slave hierarchies, and collaborative structures while teaching you how to evaluate cost-performance trade-offs and implement "human-in-the-loop" designs for scenarios requiring oversight.

Upon completion, you receive a completion certificate from IIIT Hyderabad and 5 academic credits that accrue to your Academic Bank of Credits (ABC) if you provide your ABC ID. These credits may also be applied towards degrees or diplomas at other universities depending upon the specific university's requirements. For example, some universities may recognize this as a 5-credit course, while others may recognize this as a course with fewer credits. That depends entirely on the university recognizing the course. IIIT has no control over course credit policies of other universities. If you don't meet the passing requirements, you receive a participation certificate instead of a completion certificate, without the 5 credits.

Currently, we do not have an official placement or career support mechanism in place for online students. This may, however, change in the future. Students will be informed of the changes, if any.

Course fee needs to be paid in entirety as a necessary condition for admission to the program. Once paid, the fee cannot be refunded.

This edition of the program officially starts on 19th January 2026 and runs for 11 weeks. The final exam will be in the 12th week, i.e., week of 6th April 2026. For those who missed the final exam, or wish to re-take it, they can do so for a fee. The re-exam will be held 1 week after the first final exam, i.e., week of 13th April 2026.

All the course material will be available till the conducting of the re-exam.

You can email us at ask@dfl.iiit.ac.in to open Gmail compose.