vendors promoting features rather than helping practitioners understand the technology itself.

This full-day workshop takes an independent, hands-on look at today's Generative AI landscape. Rather than focusing on a single platform, you'll gain a practical understanding of how modern AI systems work, how they are built, and how to integrate them into real-world applications.

Through demonstrations, discussion, and hands-on exploration, you'll learn the concepts, tools, and architectures that matter—whether you're just getting started or looking to build production-ready AI solutions.

Segment 1: Foundations – Concepts and APIs

We'll begin with the evolution of modern AI models, from pre-training and post-training to today's foundation models. You'll learn how these models are built, why they behave the way they do, and how to interact with them through APIs and SDKs. We'll also explore the broader ecosystem and discuss where the technology is heading.

Segment 2: Integrating AI into Applications

Next, we'll focus on practical AI integration. You'll learn about Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), prompt engineering, tool calling, and other techniques that make AI systems more useful and reliable. We'll also examine common misconceptions around AI assistants and "copilots," exploring how they actually work behind the scenes.

Segment 3: AI Agents and Agentic Systems

Agentic AI is one of the fastest-moving areas in the industry. We'll start with simple agents and progress to multi-agent systems, discussing where agents provide real value, where they fall short, and how organizations can apply agentic concepts effectively without getting lost in the hype.

Segment 4: Local AI, Media Generation, and Beyond

Finally, we'll explore running AI models locally on your own hardware, including tools such as Ollama, LM Studio, Azure AI Foundry Local, and other emerging platforms. We'll also look at image, audio, and video generation technologies, helping you understand the rapidly expanding ecosystem and how these capabilities can be integrated into your applications.

What You'll Learn:

• How modern Generative AI models are trained and deployed
• The fundamentals of working with AI APIs and SDKs
• Practical techniques for integrating AI into applications
• The realities of RAG, copilots, and agentic systems
• Options for running AI locally
• How to evaluate and select tools in a rapidly changing AI landscape

This workshop is designed for developers, architects, IT professionals, and technology leaders who want a practical, vendor-neutral understanding of Generative AI and how to apply it effectively in their work.