Prompt Engineering: How to Talk to the AIs

Prompt engineering has evolved. Getting reliable, high-quality outputs from modern AI tools now requires understanding not just what to say, but how to build the right context around every request. In this updated course—building on the original that nearly three-quarters of a million learners took—Xavier Amatriain, Chief AI Officer at Expedia and former GenAI leader at Google and LinkedIn, walks you through what prompt engineering looks like today. Learn the six core elements of an effective prompt, when to use techniques like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), chain-of-thought reasoning, and self-checks, and how to adapt your approach for fast versus thinking models. Xavier also introduces multimodal prompting across text, images, and audio, and shows you how to design AI agents that combine tools, workflows, and memory to complete real tasks. After completing this course, you'll have a modern, holistic playbook for getting AI systems to work reliably in real-world applications.

Learning objectives
Recognize the elements of an effective prompt, including instructions, questions, input data, and examples.
Identify hallmarks of effective prompts for both text output and image generation.
Distinguish between prompt engineering and context engineering, and identify when each applies.
Use advanced prompts to tackle real business scenarios like customer support workflows.
Design multimodal prompts and structured workflows for AI agents.