Fundamentals of Large Language Models
Understand how large language models (LLMs) and generative AI create content, solve problems, and power modern applications across text, images, and more.
Course Information
Certificate Track
About this Course
Step inside the systems behind today’s most pervasive AI tools. This course helps you build a clear understanding of how LLMs work, from how they process text to how they generate responses, reason through problems, and support real-world tasks. You’ll develop the intuition to use these tools effectively and responsibly across different contexts.
You’ll explore how generative AI creates text, images, and other content, and how multimodal systems combine different types of data for richer outputs. Along the way, you’ll learn practical prompting techniques, understand how models are trained and used, and examine their strengths, limits, and ethical challenges. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to think critically about how these systems shape work, creativity, and decision-making.
Fundamentals of Large Language Models is one of the five courses in Universal AI, a self-paced program designed to help you go from beginner to AI authority—no coding or technical skills required.
What you'll learn
- Understand how large language models work, including transformers, attention, and text generation
- Use prompting techniques like zero-shot, few-shot, and step-by-step reasoning
- Learn how generative AI creates content like text and images
- Understand how embeddings help connect and combine text, images, audio, and other data
- Evaluate the strengths, limits, and ethical risks of generative AI systems
- Explore how generative AI is changing creativity, work, and decision-making across industries
Modules
This course has 3 modules
Large Language Models
Generative AI, the Future of Work, and Human Creativity
Multimodal AI
How you'll learn
Real-World LearningLearn from MIT faculty and experts who ground their teaching in real-world cases rather than mathematical models, making the material approachable for all.
Practical ApplicationApply your new knowledge with hands-on, practical exercises drawn from healthcare, sports, finance, sustainability, and more.
AI-Enabled SupportDeepen your understanding of the course material and get help on assignments from AskTIM, the AI assistant built by MIT researchers.
Stackable CredentialsEarn an MIT Open Learning certificate at each milestone—module, course, and program—demonstrating your AI expertise. Available in paid courses only.
Meet your instructors
Dimitris Bertsimas
Vice Provost for Open Learning, MIT Open Learning
Dimitris Bertsimas is the Vice Provost for Open Learning at MIT, the Associate Dean of Business Analytics, the Boeing Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management, and a Professor of Operations Research at MIT Sloan School of Management. At MIT Open Learning, he oversees Open Learning’s product offerings, new initiatives, infrastructure, finances, and operations.
FAQs
There are no prerequisites for the courses in this program, and no coding background is required.
Yes, you will receive a verified certificate of completion for this course. Additionally, if you complete the full Universal AI program, you will receive a Program certificate.
Throughout the course, you'll complete short multiple-choice knowledge checks after videos or sections to confirm your understanding, plus broader multiple-choice assignments at the end of each module that cover the full range of material. Some assignments use coding notebooks, giving you hands-on practice interpreting AI outputs. However, you won't need to write any code — all code is provided, so you can focus on reading, running, and interpreting the results. There are no exams.
This course helps you understand the AI tools behind chatbots such as ChatGPT and Claude, and how to use them effectively. You'll learn how to:
- Get better results from AI. You'll learn practical prompting techniques in order to get more useful answers from AI.
- See how AI creates text, images and more. You'll learn how AI can draft content, generate visuals, and combine different types of information, so you can see where it could save you time or spark new ideas in your work.
- Understand what AI does well and where it falls short. You'll learn to spot the limits and ethical risks of AI tools, so you can double check their output and use them responsibly in your work.
- Understand how AI is changing work. You'll get a better understanding of how generative AI is impact jobs and decision-making across industries to be better prepared in your career.
