An updated version of the free, self-paced online course by Microsoft's Azure Cloud Advocates on Generative AI has been released.

We looked at the original version when it was launched last November and ended up strongly recommending it, concluding: 

if until now you were finding it confusing to get started with Generative AI, then confusion begone. Generative AI for beginners is the perfect place to start your journey.

That version was comprised of 12 chapters:

1. Introduction to Generative AI and LLMs
2. Exploring and comparing different LLMs
3. Using Generative AI Responsibly
4. Understanding Prompt Engineering Fundamentals
5. Creating Advanced Prompts
6. Building Text Generation Applications
7. Building Chat Applications
8. Building Search Apps Vector Databases
9. Building Image Generation Applications
10. Building Low Code AI Applications
11. Integrating External Applications with Function Calling
12. Designing UX for AI Applications

Version 2 keeps the same format and the same narrative, but adds six more chapters. These are :

13. Securing Your Generative AI Applications
14. The Generative AI Application Lifecycle
15. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) and Vector Databases
16. Open Source Models and Hugging Face
17. AI Agents
18. Fine-Tuning LLMs

Those cover more advanced scenarios and reflect the latest developments in the field.

One of those trends picking up steam lately is that of LLM security, therefore Chapter 13 lays out the threats and risks pertaining to AI systems as well as the methods to counteract them. The other hot topic nowadays is the use of RAG, Retrieval Augmented Generation. The course explores it in detail and ultimately compares it with the method of Fine Tuning of the previous chapter.

In Open Source Models and Hugging Face you'll also learn how to try out and experience the powerful open source models such as like LLama, Mistral or Falcon thanks to HuggingFace. No Azure and OpenAI keys necessary.

Finally you'll learn about the concept of AI Agents, components that allow Large Language Models to perform tasks by giving them access to a state and tools.

Again, the original version was great but the new additions bring the material up to date with the all the latest, resulting to an even better and more holistic experience. Recommend twice over.

More Information

Generative AI for beginners v2 - Github

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Generative AI for Beginners v1

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