Applied Agentic AI Certificate

The Applied Agentic AI Certificate is a two-week, in-person program that teaches you how modern AI agents think, plan, communicate, and take action. You will learn by doing through instructor-led lectures, guided labs, industry workshops, and a final AI Hackathon where you will present a working agent prototype.

This program is ideal for learners from any background. If you are curious about AI, interested in automation, or want to understand the fast-moving world of agentic systems, this course gives you the tools and confidence to participate in real AI work.

No coding experience is required.

Designed with you in Mind

Agentic AI is transforming how businesses and organizations operate. Customer service teams are building autonomous support agents. Creative teams are using AI to research and generate ideas. Operations teams are automating workflows with intelligent agents that can retrieve information, draft content, troubleshoot issues, and complete tasks.

This course was created for learners who want to:

• Understand how agentic AI works without needing advanced math or programming
• Learn practical skills that support AI strategy, design, evaluation, and communication
• Build a simple AI agent they can use in their portfolio or workplace
• Explore career paths that involve human and AI collaboration
• Upskill quickly through a short and immersive program

If you are new to AI or simply want a clear explanation of how these systems function, this program meets you where you are and helps you build forward.

What You Will Learn

By the end of the Applied Agentic AI Certificate, you will be able to:

• Understand how modern AI agents work
  • Explain the core ideas behind reasoning, planning, memory, tool-use, and multi-step decision making.
• Design and prototype simple AI agents
  • Use beginner-friendly frameworks to create workflows, prompts, and behaviors that guide how an agent interacts with users and information.
• Evaluate and improve agent performance
  • Test and refine agent behavior for accuracy, safety, reliability, and responsible use.
• Apply human-centered and ethical design principles
  • Create agent interactions that support user needs, reduce confusion, and promote transparency and fairness.
• Build and present a working agent
  • Develop an AI agent that solves a real problem and present it during the final Hackathon showcase.

Meet Your Instructors

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Viviana Márquez is the AI Community Lead at Prolific, where she helps AI teams build better machine learning systems by providing fast, self-serve access to diverse human data across the AI lifecycle. She holds a Master’s in Data Science from USF and has worked as a data scientist at HBO, Dataminr, Royal Caribbean, among others. As an educator, she has trained over 4,000 learners worldwide, from Fortune 500 teams to graduate students, turning complex AI concepts into practical skills.

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Dr. Shan Wang is the Program Director and Associate Professor for the MS in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence program at the University of San Francisco. Her work focuses on medical informatics, data and AI for health care, and the ethical and policy implications of emerging technologies. She brings deep expertise in statistical modeling and applied AI, with a passion for helping learners understand how data-driven methods can address real-world problems in health and society. Dr. Wang holds a PhD in Statistics from Purdue University and a BS in Mathematics from Fudan University.

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Victor Palacios serves as the Director of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence Partnerships at the University of San Francisco, where he develops strategic industry collaborations and supports applied AI innovation across the Data Institute. He holds three graduate degrees: an MS in Information Science from Nagoya University in Japan, an MS in Data Science from USF, and he is currently completing a third master's in Computer Science.

Why This Program Matters

Demand for AI literacy is growing across every industry. Research from the World Economic Forum, Deloitte, and McKinsey shows that organizations plan to train a large share of their workforce to work with generative AI tools and agentic systems. Yet only a small percentage feel confident that their teams understand these technologies well enough to implement them responsibly.

This certificate helps close that gap by offering a fast, approachable, and practical pathway into agentic AI. You will learn real skills that support AI-enabled work, including prototyping, testing, and communicating with multidisciplinary teams.

Located in the center of San Francisco’s AI innovation ecosystem, this course gives you access to experienced instructors, industry perspectives, and hands-on learning that connects directly to the future of work.