Overview
Build the agentic future
This MIT course brings together technical teams to build AI-first products two years ahead of the market. This fall we will focus on agentic web intelligence, autonomous companies, AI-native coding, physical-world robotics, and AI personalization, challenging students to create ventures (or labs, foundations, societies, etc.) with significant impact on the world.
This hands-on course teaches developers and engineers how to identify breakthrough AI opportunities, anticipate emerging trends, and rapidly prototype cutting-edge solutions using the latest technical frameworks and tools. Through real-world projects, and insights from AI leaders, you'll develop the skills to create high-impact AI applications that solve meaningful problems before the market catches up. The course features guest lectures from leading AI scientists and engineers, tech CEOs, VCs, and culminates in a demo day with top experts from the MIT ecosystem.
Course pillars:
1. Innovation (20%): Cultivating a deep understanding of where AI is going to be in 2-3 years or more. Multimodal reasoning, autonomous workflows, personalized agents, robotics, and more.
2. Venture Creation (30%): Learn how to design ventures that can make truly global impact, validate ideas with AI-powered outreach and interviews, for compelling market-ready solutions.
3. Technical Building (50%): We will teach you about hands-on creation of agentic systems, LLM-based tools, and automated pipelines using the latest AI stacks and frameworks.
Follow these steps to register for the course.
- Step 0: Register for course : For MIT (Link), For Harvard (Link)
- Step 1: Questionnaire (Link 1) before Wed, Sept 3rd, 5pm
- Step 2: Finish short online course pre-requisites (Link 2) by Sun, Sep 7th
You must finish Step 1 to attend the first class. You will be expected to finish Step 2 and upload the snapshot that you've finished the course. If you have finished a degree course or have a professional background in these areas, you do not need to finish the online course.
Class Schedule: Thursdays 10 AM to 12 Noon in room E14-633 at MIT Media Lab starting September 4th
Course Instructors

Serge Vasylechko
Harvard Medical School AI
Leaders
Mentors
Background
Almost 25% of students from this course transform their projects into startups. The program, which evolved from Sandy Pentland's "Development Ventures," has established a strong track record of launching successful student ventures through its Demo Day showcase.
Our previous class links can be found here:
- Spring'25: AI Venture Studio
- Fall'24: MIT Foundations of AI Ventures
- Spring'24: AI Venture Studio
- Fall'23: AI Venture Studio
- Spring'23: AI + Web3 for Impact: Venture Studio
- Fall'22: AI + Web3 for Impact: Venture Studio
- Spring'22: AI for Impact: Venture Studio
- Fall'21: AI for Impact ~ Building Global Ventures Solving Societal-Scale Problems
- Spring'21: AI for Impact
- Fall'20: Global Ventures ~ Data and AI for Resilience after COVID19
- Spring'20: AI for Impact ~ Towards Solving Societal-Scale Problems via Media Ventures
All other previous AI for Impact/Global Ventures class links can be found here:
Course Outline
Class Goals:
- Guide students to identify, evaluate and build high-impact projects with AI. Focus on deep technology applications that are best suited to students with top engineering and design skills at MIT.
- Advance "Big Ideas" into MVP-seed-stage for commercial consideration.
- Teach the technical fundamentals of the modern AI stack (rapid prototyping, deployment, and model management).
- Discuss practical trade-offs in AI product development (model accuracy, efficiency, and latency).
Timeline:
- Meet and Greet held at MIT/Harvard
- First day of class: Thursday, September 4, 2025
- Mid-term review: Thursday, October 9, 2025
- Final Class Presentations and "Demo Day" awards: Thursday, December 4, 2025
Class Structure:
- Venture studio format, with team projects with 3-5 students per team
- Guest speakers share leading-edge thinking
- NB: You can use this course for Entrepreneurship Minor credits. Fill up this form under 'E&I Context' and meet E&I minor advisor, Reza Rahaman (rezar@mit.edu) for sign off.
- Minimum Viable Product (MVP) by the end of the term
- Demo Day
Support for Students:
- Weekly class mentor meetings on Thursday after class / guest lectures / work sessions
- Class visits to local start-ups and technology companies
- Data and AI scientists from startups for experience
- Sessions with startup coaches
Spring 2025 Demo Day at the Media Lab