Agentic AI: The New Software Paradigm - Part 1 of 3

Agentic AI is the emerging software paradigm where systems move beyond simple automation to exhibit adaptive, autonomous, goal-driven behavior. This course is Part 1 of a three-part series, and it lays the conceptual and architectural foundation you need before building real agents.

You'll start by exploring what "intelligence" means in the context of software, how large language models fit into that picture, and why agentic systems represent a genuine shift rather than an incremental feature. From there, the course moves into architecture and system design: control flow, decision-making loops, short-term context versus long-term memory, and the product-thinking pillars behind solutions that hold up in production.

The final section covers the core building blocks every agent relies on: context engineering, tool use, and code execution - the practical mechanics that turn a language model into something that can reason, decide, and act.

By the end of Part 1, you'll have a solid mental model of how agentic systems are structured and why they behave the way they do, setting you up for the rest of the series.

This course is Part 1 of 3 in the "Agentic AI: The New Software Paradigm" series:

- Part 1 (this course): Foundations & Mental Models, Architecture & System Design, Core Agentic Building Blocks

- Part 2, "Agentic AI: The New Software Paradigm - Part 2": Patterns, Frameworks & Ecosystem - multi-agent design, the OpenAI Platform, agent builders, LangChain/LangGraph/LangSmith, agent frameworks, MCP, and agentic coding

- Part 3, "Agentic AI: The New Software Paradigm - Part 3": Deploy, Evaluate, Improve - local models, evals, observability, fine-tuning & distillation, and a concluding outlook

Search for the exact titles above on Udemy to find the other parts and continue your agentic AI journey.