Course

How AI agents work

A course that explains AI language models and the agents built on them, one small idea at a time.

What this course is

This course explains how an AI language model produces an answer, and how that skill is used to build an AI agent. Each chapter covers one idea and builds on the chapter before it.

No AI background is needed. If you can use a web browser, you can follow every chapter.

How each chapter works

Every chapter has three parts. You can do them in any order, but this order works well:

  1. A short video with captions and a written transcript.
  2. A lesson to read, with a checkpoint, a list of terms and a list of sources.
  3. A hands-on lab that runs in your browser. You press buttons and watch what happens.

Computer-generated voice

The narrator of every video is a computer-generated voice, made with a text-to-speech model called Kokoro. It is not a recorded person. Captions and a transcript show every word it says.

What is available now

Chapter A1, What an AI language model is, is ready. More chapters are added over time.

Start with the video at the top of the chapter, then read the lesson, then open the lab.

How long it takes

These times are estimates for chapter A1:

  • Video: 1 minute 22 seconds.
  • Lesson: about 10 minutes of reading.
  • Lab: about 5 minutes.

Dates and sources

Some facts about AI change quickly, such as model details and settings. Every number that can change carries a date, written like this: as of 2026-10-18.

The sources for each lesson are listed at the foot of that lesson. Each source is a paper or a vendor document that you can open and read yourself.