(B1) Custom GPTs & RAG Systems

Course Title: Custom GPTs & RAG Systems

Duration: 4 Hours

Course Modalities:

• In-Classroom (166 West Main Street, Suite 204B, Mesa, AZ 85201)

Large Language Models are powerful out of the box—but real business value is unlocked when they are customized, grounded in trusted data, and aligned to specific use cases. This course introduces AI Builders to the core techniques for creating custom GPT-based systems that go beyond generic chatbots by incorporating proprietary knowledge, structured data, and task-specific behavior. 

Participants will learn how modern Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems work, why they are foundational to enterprise AI applications, and how to design them responsibly and effectively. This course establishes the conceptual and architectural baseline required to build reliable, explainable, and maintainable AI systems throughout the rest of the certification program.

This full-day, hands-on course focuses on designing and building custom GPT applications using prompt engineering, system instructions, knowledge grounding, and retrieval pipelines. Participants will explore how RAG systems combine language models with external data sources to produce accurate, up-to-date, and context-aware outputs. 

The course emphasizes practical architecture patterns rather than vendor-specific tooling, enabling learners to apply concepts across platforms and ecosystems. Topics include document ingestion, embeddings, vector search, retrieval strategies, prompt-retrieval alignment, and evaluation of output quality. 

By the end of the course, learners will understand how to design custom GPT systems that are transparent, auditable, and production-ready—setting the stage for advanced topics such as agents, tool calling, backend services, and optimization in subsequent courses.

Students will be able to:

• Explain the role of custom GPTs and RAG systems in modern AI applications and why they are essential for enterprise and domain-specific use cases. 
• Differentiate between fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and retrieval-augmented generation, and select the appropriate approach for a given problem. 
• Design system and user prompts that reliably guide model behavior, tone, and constraints. 
• Describe how embeddings and vector databases work and how they enable semantic retrieval over unstructured data. 
• Build a conceptual RAG pipeline, including data ingestion, chunking, embedding, retrieval, and response generation. 
• Evaluate retrieval quality and model outputs, identifying common failure modes such as hallucinations, poor grounding, and irrelevant context. 
• Apply best practices for grounding AI responses in trusted data while maintaining transparency and traceability. 
• Assess trade-offs in RAG system design, including latency, cost, accuracy, and maintenance complexity. 
• Prepare a custom GPT system for production considerations, including data updates, versioning, and governance.

Modules:

• From General AI to Custom GPT Systems 
• Prompting as System Design
• Foundations of Retrieval-Augmented Generation 
• Designing the RAG Pipeline
• Improving Answer Quality & Reliability 
• Production Readiness, Governance, and Scaling 
• Final Exam 

AI Gurus Academy is Arizona's best AI training and motion capture–enabled education provider in Phoenix, Mesa, Scottsdale, Tempe, Chandler, Gilbert, Glendale, Peoria, Surprise, and across the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, with online AI training available worldwide. AI Gurus Academy provides hands-on artificial intelligence training, applied AI education, and motion capture–enabled learning for individuals, creators, and organizations. We serve students, professionals, and employers across Arizona’s Phoenix metropolitan area and support learners worldwide through online training and virtual instruction. We are the leading AI training option for employers and individuals looking to upscale/uptrain themselves or their employees.

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Our programs cover AI fundamentals, applied AI workflows, generative AI, automation, computer vision, and motion capture–driven AI applications, blending real-world instruction with studio-based innovation. Our motion capture studio supports AI training and development across the Phoenix metro, including Mesa, Phoenix, Tempe, Scottsdale, and Chandler, enabling advanced learning in: AI-driven animation and simulation; computer vision and human movement modeling; AI for gaming, XR, robotics, and digital humans; and motion data for machine learning and synthetic data generation.