From BI to AI:
Making Data-Driven Decisions with Agentic AI
Instructor
Kerry Back
kerry.e.back@rice.edu
J. Howard Creekmore Professor of Finance and Professor of Economics
AI agents that understand plain English, query your data, and deliver answers instantly are transforming how organizations make decisions. This eight-session course gives you hands-on experience building and using these tools — no coding background required.
You’ll use AI to wrangle data, generate charts and reports, solve optimization problems, and automate workflows. You’ll learn how to build custom AI agents that connect to databases and documents, how to secure them for enterprise use, and how to develop an implementation plan for your organization. 90 minute Zoom sessions twice weekly for four weeks.
Our AI Lab provides each participant with cloud-based access to Claude Code so you can work with AI tools without installing software or subscribing to an AI provider.
Session 1: The AI Landscape. Chatbots and agents; the major models; large language models from 30,000 feet; Claude Desktop: Chat/Cowork/Code; API calls; prompting techniques.
Session 2: Working with AI. Terminal commands and Python scripts; querying databases; common data operations; generating charts, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint decks, and text output; Claude skills and connectors.
Session 3: Optimization and Prediction with AI. Optimization; exploring tradeoffs between competing objectives; simulation; predictive models; train/test; evaluation of predictive models.
Session 4: Automating Workflows with AI. How software works; building database interfaces and dashboards; automatic table, chart, and document production; containers and deployment.
Session 5: AI Agents and Security. Claude Agent SDK, data processing agreements, prompt injection and data exfiltration defenses; containers and proxies.
Session 6: Deep Dive into Agents. Build teams of agents; use containers to implement least privilege; build a secure personal-assistant agent.
Session 7: Make Your AI Smarter. Retrieval augmented generation; graph databases; fine tuning.
Session 8: Capstone. Pitch your implementation plan and get peer feedback.