It’s not unheard of for companies to offer internal certification opportunities that closely align with their products and services. Basically, they have no weight outside of the organization as they are the certifying body and course content creators. However, the skills learned can be and usually are absolutely helpful outside of the organization.
Optum recently offered one, and even though it is only available to employees, I believe the advice I have for it will help others who are curious about generative AI certificates.
It covered Generative AI in depth. It spanned various topics, such as how to leverage agentic AI and how to responsibly use it in real-world scenarios. It was all highly relevant inside and outside of the organization.
If anyone is considering obtaining a generative AI certificate, be prepared for things to already be outdated. This is not a criticism, but a reality check. The tech is developing quite quickly.
There were several sections covering various topics, and each section had a test at the end. Those were all quite easy.
The very end of the course included a capstone project. This was quite daunting for me as I am not a developer, but it wasn’t too bad in hindsight.
We were given different real-world use cases. For mine, I had to build a pipeline that embedded content from provided files for future retrieval, and then leverage generative AI to do things such as retrieve relevant content using various retrieval methods, review the retrieval methods for accuracy, and provide accurate, clear, and concise answers to various medical questions that only used the embedded context. Questions that could not be answered with the provided context had to be responded with a brief message stating that given context could not provide a valid answer.
This was accomplished by leveraging a couple different AI models, a vector database for embedding, Python libraries that extended the functionality of the AI models, and strategic prompt engineering to achieve the desired results.
AI is the buzziest of buzzwords right now. I have a feeling that every single certification five years from now will at least reserve a section for it and how it could tie into the course content.
I know, it’s making PC gaming inaccessible for many, driving up energy costs, making it harder for young professionals to break into the industry, and giving leaders great pause in expanding a team’s head count as they wonder if ChatGPT could lessen their workload for much less.
For all of its faults, it is still here to stay. Regardless of whether or not the AI bubble bursts, the technology is not going away. Perhaps the hype will return to a normal level, but it will not disappear.
I would recommend learning more about it. There are plenty of AI certificates on the market. The ones offered by Microsoft and AWS are going to be the best bets for now. Check them out, and begrudgingly embrace the future of the industry with me.