Agentic Workflows: Design and Implementation (online)

Overview

While ChatGPT was disruptive, 'autonomous AI agents' promise to be potentially even more revolutionary.

Essentially, autonomous AI agents allow you to instruct AI to perform tasks at a higher level of abstraction. For example, instead of providing detailed instructions, you can simply ask the AI to 'book a holiday to Greece' - the AI would then create and prioritise subtasks, and semi-autonomously execute them to achieve your goal.

This brand new course Agentic Workflows: Design and Implementation covers the development of systems concerned with autonomous AI agents (agentic workflows).

Autonomous AI agents are large language models (LLM) based systems that are distinguished by ‘agency’. These systems can act semi-autonomously to interact with other systems, make decisions and perform a complex goal. In contrast, traditional systems are concerned with a transactional interaction i.e. a one pass engagement.

Components of agentic workflows include (as proposed by technology entrepeneur Andrew Ng):

  • Reflection: the ability to examine and improve its own work
  • Tool use: actuate tasks by invoking tools 
  • Planning and reasoning: develop and execute multi-step plans to achieve the goal (problem solving abilities)
  • Multi-agent collaboration: the ability for multiple AI agents to work together to communicate and coordinate to solve a larger task

Programme details

The course is primarily concerned with redesigning enterprise workflows using autonomous AI agents.

In this course, we cover:

  • Design and development of autonomous AI agents
  • Agentic RAG (retrieval augmented generation)
  • Designing agentic workflows
  • Simulations at scale
  • Specific tools and techniques for development of agentic workflows such as OpenAI, llamaindex, AWS and Azure
  • Processes, standards and safety

Note that this is a complex and dynamic topic. Both the themes and speakers are subject to change as we approach the start of the course.

The course is positioned at both a strategic and a technical level. Code will be both used and demonstrated in the course, but participants will not be expected to write their own code as part of the course.

Dates, Times and Delivery

This course will run over six live online sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, from 14:00 - 18:30 (UK time), including a half-hour break.

Session dates:

  • 12 May 2025
  • 14 May 2025
  • 16 May 2025
  • 19 May 2025
  • 21 May 2025
  • 23 May 2025

Sessions will be held from 14:00 to 18:30. In some cases, the sessions will extend to 19:00, and will be delivered online via Microsoft Teams.

A world clock, and time zone converter can be found here: https://bit.ly/3bSPu6D

No attendance at Oxford is required and you do not need to purchase any software.

Accessing Your Online Course 

Details about accessing the private MS Teams course site will be emailed to you during the week prior to the course commencing.  

Please get in touch if you have not received this information within three working days of the course start date.

Certification

You will be required to attend and participate in all of the live sessions on the course in order to be considered for a certificate.

Participants who complete the course will be emailed with a link to download a University of Oxford digital certificate. Information on how to access this digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course.

The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will also be able to download your certificate or share it on social media if you choose to do so.

Fees

Description Costs
Course fee £1250.00

Payment

All courses are VAT exempt.

Register immediately online 

Click the 'Book now' button on this webpage. Payment by credit or debit card is required.

Request an invoice

If you require an invoice for your company or personal records, please contact the administration team. Please do not send card or bank details via email.

Tutors

Ajit Jaokar

Course Director

Ajit is a dedicated leader and teacher in Artificial Intelligence (AI), with a strong background in AI for Cyber-Physical Systems, research, entrepreneurship, and academia. 

Currently, he serves as the Course Director for several AI programs at the University of Oxford and is a Visiting Fellow in Engineering Sciences at the University of Oxford. His work is rooted in the interdisciplinary aspects of AI, such as AI integration with Digital Twins and Cybersecurity. 

His courses have also been delivered at prestigious institutions, including the London School of Economics (LSE), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), and as part of The Future Society at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

As an Advisory AI Engineer, Ajit specialises in developing innovative, early-stage AI prototypes for complex applications. His work focuses on leveraging interdisciplinary approaches to solve real-world challenges using AI technologies.

Ajit has shared his expertise on technology and AI with several high-profile platforms, including the World Economic Forum, Capitol Hill/White House, and the European Parliament.

Ajit is currently writing a book aimed at teaching AI through mathematical foundations at the high school level.

Ajit resides in London, UK, and holds British citizenship. He is actively engaged in advancing AI education and innovation both locally and globally. He is neurodiverse - being on the high functioning autism spectrum. 

Ajit's work in teaching, consulting, and entrepreneurship is grounded in methodologies and frameworks he developed through his AI teaching experience. These methodologies help to rapidly develop complex, interdisciplinary AI solutions in a relatively short time. These include:
1. The Jigsaw Methodology for low-code data science to non-developers.
2. The AI Product Manager framework and AI product market fit framework 
3. Software engineering with the LLM stack 
4. Agentic RAG for cyber-physical systems.
5. AI for Engineering sciences: 
6. The ability of AI to reason using large language models 

He also consults at senior advisory levels to companies.

His newsletter on AI in Linkedin has a wide following 
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/artificial-intelligence-6793973274368856064/

Anjali Jain

Tutor

Digital Solutions Architect, Metrobank 

Anjali is a Digital Solutions Architect at Metrobank, where she helps to deliver advanced technology driven business solutions around diverse themes of Internet Banking, Mobile App, Business banking, and Open banking/PSD2, using agile methodology.

She has over 16 years of IT experience and worked across Banking, Telecom and logistics domains, from inception to the delivery of complex projects.

Anjali is passionate about AI and Machine learning and completed the course "Data science for internet of things" in February 2019 from the University of Oxford.

Mr John Alexander

Tutor

LLM Strategy Consultant and AI Developer

John Alexander is a highly experienced and accomplished professional with a diverse background in technology, strategy consulting, and education. He has a passion for designing and building accessible experiences using machine learning coupled with vision, voice, touch, and virtual/mixed reality. Currently, he serves as an LLM Strategy Consultant and AI Developer, where he focuses on implementing LLM strategies and experimenting with cutting-edge tools like LangChain and Pinecone. Additionally, John is a Tutor at the University of Oxford, where he lectures on Artificial Intelligence applications and Cloud and Edge Implementations.

Prior to his current roles, John spent several years at Microsoft, where he held various positions including Lead Developer and Engineer Relations, Autonomous Systems, and Lead Content Developer on ML.Net. John participated in the Xbox Accessible Controller beta and the launch video. He was on the award-winning Hackathon 2020 Elev8: Accessible Guitar Team. These are two of his proudest accomplishments. His expertise also extends to content development and instruction, as he has developed Coursera courses and Learn modules on Autonomous Systems in collaboration with prestigious institutions like the University of Washington and the University of Oxford.

Before joining Microsoft, John was the co-founder of a digital agency and consultancy and had the honor of being a Microsoft Regional Director for 19 years, where he participated in scheduled strategic feedback sessions with Microsoft senior leadership teams. John co-founded the largest technical blogging community in the world, Geekswithblogs.Net, before selling it several years ago. He’s co-authored three best-selling technical books and Microsoft Official Curriculum. John has a proven track record in high-profile international public speaking and presentations in front of some of the most demanding audiences, both executive and technical.

He’s coached several teams of developers, leading one directly responsible for earning their organization a place on CIO Magazine’s “Agile 100” list. John also built music chart applications for Billboard Magazine used by "American Top 40” and architected a highly scalable Mutual Funds Trading SOA-based platform used non-stop the last 21 years to process billions of dollars in transactions. In his spare time, he's sat in Kirk's Chair on the bridge, recorded cartoon pilots as part of a voice ensemble cast, is the co-creator of the "Geek" t-shirt (found at most Microsoft conferences), and was Facebook friends with Patrick Swayze.

Aishwarya Naresh Reganti

Tutor

Aishwarya works as a tech lead at the AWS-Generative AI Innovation Center in California, where she leads projects aimed at building production-ready generative AI applications for medium to large-sized businesses. With over 8 years of experience in machine learning, Aishwarya has published 30+ research papers in top AI conferences and mentored numerous graduate students. She actively collaborates with research labs and professors from institutions like Stanford University, University of Michigan, and University of South Carolina on projects related to LLMs, graph models and generative AI.

Outside her professional and academic pursuits, Aishwarya actively contributes to education through various channels. She offers free courses online, with over 3000 individuals having taken them already, and serves as a visiting lecturer at esteemed institutions like Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Additionally, she co-founded The LevelUp Org in 2022, a tech mentoring community dedicated to assisting newcomers in the field through mentorship programs and career-oriented events. A recognised industry expert and thought leader, Aishwarya frequently speaks at various industry conferences like ODSC, WomenTech Network, ReWork and AI4, and has presented research at top-tier AI research conferences including EMNLP, AAAI and CVPR.

Norah Klintberg Sakal

Tutor

Norah Klintberg Sakal is an AI enthusiast and entrepreneur passionate about applying technology to solve real-world problems. As the founder of Braine, Norah assists companies in enhancing productivity using AI tools like GPT-3/4. Before Braine, Norah founded NuclAI, focusing on AI algorithms for cancer research and microbiology.

During her time at Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, Norah worked on artificial intelligence for segmentation of nuclei from transmitted images, further developing her expertise in the field. She has shared her knowledge and insights at international conferences, engaging audiences on AI, entrepreneurship, and innovation. As an AI tutor at Oxford, Norah aims to inspire students to explore the potential of AI and create innovative solutions across industries.

Christoffer Noring

Tutor

Senior Cloud Advocate, Microsoft 

Chris is Senior Cloud Advocate at Microsoft with more than 15 years's experience in the IT industry. He's a published author on several books about web development as well as the Go language. He's also a recognized speaker as well as keynote speaker and holds a Google developer expert title.   

Ayşe Mutlu

Tutor

Ayşe Mutlu is a data scientist working on Azure AI and devops technologies. Based in London, Ayşe’s work involves building and deploying Machine Learning and Deep Learning models using the Microsoft Azure framework (Azure DevOps and Azure Pipelines).

She enjoys coding in Python and contributing to Open Source Initiatives in Python.

Marina Fernandez

Tutor

Digital Hive and Innovation consultant, Anglo American Plc

Marina is an Analyst Developer and Software consultant at Anglo American plc working at the Digital Hive on innovative trading analytics and optimisation projects. She has over 18 years’ experience in Software Engineering, Business Analysis, Data Science and full software development life cycle in a variety of business domains including Commodity trading and optimisation, Finance, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, e-commerce, e-learning, and web-development.

Marina holds an MSc, with distinction, in Software Engineering from the University of Oxford and a degree in Applied Mathematics from Lomonosov Moscow State University. In February 2020, Marina completed the course "Data science for internet of things" from the University of Oxford.

Arthur Orts

Tutor

Arthur Orts is the Head of Portfolio Analytics & Risk Specialist Sales for Continental Europe at Bloomberg LP, a position he has held since November 2019. With over 9 years of experience at Bloomberg, Arthur has developed deep technical expertise in quantitative finance and advanced portfolio engineering. His work integrates Factor modelling, machine learning with traditional financial models and model for  allocation, and risk management.

Following his master's degree at the Mines Paris Tech, a French engineering school, he completed an internship at the Atomic Energy Center of Sacleay (CEA), working on innovative projects.  Arthur continue to stay close to academia by sharing his expertise through lecturing in quantitative finance at institutions like Grenoble Ecole de Management.

Arthur has taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence, completing courses in Machine Learning Operations (MLOps), Machine Learning, and Generative AI at the University of Oxford. This advanced training in AI complements his extensive background in quantitative finance and data analysis.

Putting theory into practice, Arthur has developed an early version of an agentic application called DataFoundry. This tool leverages AI agents to autonomously collect and organize web data into structured datasets, demonstrating the practical applications of AI in data management and analysis. DataFoundry bridges the gap between raw web information and actionable business intelligence, showcasing Arthur's ability to apply cutting-edge AI techniques to solve real-world data challenges in finance and beyond.

Application

If you would like to discuss your application or any part of the application process before applying, please click the 'Ask a Question' button at the top of this page.

IT requirements

This course is delivered online using Microsoft Teams. You will be required to follow and implement the instructions we send you to fully access Microsoft Teams on the University of Oxford's secure IT network.

This course is delivered online; to participate you will need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended Minimum computer specification.

It is advised to use headphones with working speakers and microphone.