Build with AI: Autonomous Agents with LangChain and Hugging Face

Course details

AI agents are the next step beyond chatbots, capable of reasoning, planning, and acting in dynamic workflows. In this beginner-friendly course, tech educator Walter Shields walks you through the process of building your first AI agent using LangChain and Hugging Face. Start with simple, prompt-based interactions and progress to agents that can remember, adapt, and use external tools. Along the way, explore best practices for optimizing performance and adding guardrails for reliability. As you complete this course, you’ll build a research assistant agent you can customize for your own projects.

Learning objectives
Explain the difference between AI chatbots and AI agents.
Build a functional AI agent using LangChain and Hugging Face.
Design workflows that allow agents to complete multi-step tasks.
Add memory and connect agents to external tools and APIs.
Apply guardrails and best practices to optimize agent performance.

Concepts

Introduction

Welcome, setup, and demo of your finished AI agent
Set up your environment

Understand AI Agents

Build Your First Agent

Build your first prompt-based agent
Hands-on project - Joke teller agent

Expand Workflows and Reliability

Multistep thinking in agents
Memory and context - Give your agent memory
Tool use and APIs - Connect your agent to tools

Real-World Project

Mini study buddy - One-pager coach