Introducing Our 8-Hour Generative AI Primer

Once again, I’m super excited to share some news from the Towards AI team—we’ve just launched a brand-new 8-hour Generative AI Primer designed to help developers master, use, and build with Large Language Models (LLMs).

This new offer is a programming language-agnostic on-ramp to everything LLM: from how ChatGPT can boost your day-to-day productivity to how you can start developing custom AI solutions.

Why did we build this course? Over the last few years, I’ve seen a huge gap between AI theory and real-world application—especially in the fast-moving LLM space. We wanted a course that cuts through the noise, equips you with practical know-how, and gets you actually using and building with LLMs in no time. That’s why this new 8-hour primer focuses on giving you the core LLM developer toolkit, from prompt engineering and retrieval-augmented generation to the basics of fine-tuning. Plus, we’ll show you how to integrate these models into your workflow and build no-code or low-code prototypes.

Don't you have the "From Beginner to Advanced LLM Developer" course for that? No. This new offer is an 8-hour (one day) applied crash course with tons of practice and information to bring any developer up-to-speed with the current LLM systems (not a code where you'll code a lot, but you'll still build and do projects, and learn a lot!). In contrast, the advanced LLM developer course is built for Python developers to give them a super practical way to become an expert LLM developer in 50-80 hours. We could say this new offer is a prequel.

So.. what’s inside?

- Tons of Hands-On Exercises & Demos – Get comfortable with ChatGPT, Claude, and better understand LangChain, LlamaIndex, Hugging Face...

- Real-World Examples – See how LLMs can transform industries, whether you’re in education, software development, finance, or beyond.

- Understand how to compare and select models, integrate them with your projects, and responsibly use AI.

- Support & Community – You’ll join our incredible community of 70,000+ learners, with instructors and mentors ready to help you every step of the way.

- Get a certification and lifetime mentorship from other certified students and the Towards AI team.

More info on the course page and course video:

No specialized background is needed—just your willingness to learn. Following our goal, this is a practical course. You will be doing exercises, have quizzes and build things. If you are not willing to "sweat a little" to learn, this course is not for you. If you’re still on the fence, you can preview the first few lessons for free, by the way.

Start our "8-hour Generative AI Primer for Software Professionals" course now: https://academy.towardsai.net/courses/8-hour-genai-primer?ref=1f9b29

If you have any questions, feel free to comment or DM me. I’m here to help you figure out if this course is the right fit. :)

Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the course!

Louis-Fran?ois, CTO and co-founder at Towards AI