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Google Cloud Training

This is a self-paced lab that takes place in the Google Cloud console. In this lab, you use Vertex AI Vector Search to index documents and create a knowledge base. The knowledge base is utilized to retrieve relevant search results to supply with a query submitted to a large language model (LLM), in this case, Gemini, as context. This technique is known as retrieval augmentation generation (RAG).

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What's inside

Syllabus

Traffic lights

Read about what's good
what should give you pause
and possible dealbreakers
Teaches a practical, in-demand skill that can be applied in many areas
Provides hands-on practice with industry-standard tools
Taught by Google Cloud Training, who have a strong reputation in the field
Focuses on a specific area of knowledge, allowing learners to develop expertise
Offers a comprehensive study of a particular topic
Requires some prior knowledge or experience, which may be a barrier for some learners

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Reviews summary

Practical rag with vertex ai and gemini

According to learners, this course offers a highly practical and hands-on experience in building a knowledge base system using Vertex AI Vector Search, LangChain, and Gemini. Students particularly praise the clear and concise instructions for navigating the Google Cloud environment, making the self-paced lab a smooth learning journey. It provides a strong foundational understanding of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) concepts and showcases the application of cutting-edge AI technologies. While it excels in practical application, some note it's best suited for those with some prior knowledge of Python and core AI/ML concepts, as it's a lab and not a deep theoretical dive.
Establishes a solid understanding of Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG).
"I now have a clear understanding of how RAG works and its components after completing this lab."
"This course provided a good conceptual basis before diving into the practical build of the system."
"It helped solidify my understanding of vector search and its crucial role in modern AI applications."
Instructions are clear and easy to follow within the Google Cloud console.
"The step-by-step guidance in the Google Cloud environment was very helpful for completing the lab."
"I had no issues setting up or running the lab; the instructions were spot on and well-detailed."
"For a self-paced lab, the clarity of instructions made it a smooth and enjoyable learning experience."
Explores current and highly relevant technologies for AI development.
"The use of Gemini and LangChain makes this course highly relevant for today's AI landscape."
"It's great to see a course incorporating the latest developments in LLMs and RAG frameworks."
"I found the integration of Vertex AI Vector Search particularly useful for real-world projects."
Offers valuable practical experience building a RAG system.
"I really appreciated the hands-on nature of this lab; it helped me understand RAG much better."
"Building a functional knowledge base system was a great way to apply these concepts effectively."
"This course is excellent for getting practical experience with Vertex AI Vector Search and Gemini."
Primarily a lab, not an in-depth theoretical course or deployment guide.
"It's a great practical lab, but don't expect deep dives into advanced RAG optimization techniques."
"The course delivers what it promises for a lab, but advanced deployment strategies are not covered in depth."
"I would have liked more on scaling the knowledge base, but it's a very solid starting point for RAG."
Best suited for those with some prior experience in Python and AI/ML.
"As a beginner, I found some parts assumed prior knowledge of LLMs and Python programming."
"While practical, it doesn't delve deep into the theoretical aspects of vector embeddings or advanced ML."
"I recommend having a basic understanding of Google Cloud concepts before starting this specific lab."

Activities

Be better prepared before your course. Deepen your understanding during and after it. Supplement your coursework and achieve mastery of the topics covered in Build a Knowledge Based System with Vertex AI Vector Search, LangChain and Gemini with these activities:
Review the basics of natural language processing (NLP)
Refreshing your NLP knowledge will provide a strong foundation for understanding RAG.
Browse courses on NLP
Show steps
  • Review NLP concepts
  • Practice NLP techniques
Follow a tutorial on how to build an end-to-end RAG system
Following a tutorial will provide you with practical experience in setting up and using a RAG system.
Show steps
  • Identify a suitable tutorial
  • Follow the tutorial step-by-step
  • Troubleshoot any issues encountered
Deploy a Vertex AI Vector Search Knowledge Base
Deploying a Vertex AI Vector Search Knowledge Base will reinforce your understanding of the core concepts.
Browse courses on Knowledge Base
Show steps
  • Create a Vertex AI Vector Search Index
  • Configure the Knowledge Base
  • Deploy the Knowledge Base
Three other activities
Expand to see all activities and additional details
Show all six activities
Write a step-by-step guide to using Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG)
Creating a detailed guide on how to use RAG will solidify your understanding of the technique.
Show steps
  • Gather the necessary resources
  • Outline the steps
  • Write the guide
  • Edit and revise
Attend a workshop on advanced applications of Vector Search
Attending a workshop will provide in-depth knowledge and hands-on experience in using Vector Search for advanced applications.
Browse courses on Vector Search
Show steps
  • Research and identify relevant workshops
  • Register for a workshop
  • Attend the workshop
Contribute to a Vector Search or RAG open-source project
Contributing to an open-source project will enhance your practical skills and deepen your understanding of the underlying technologies.
Browse courses on Vector Search
Show steps
  • Identify a suitable project
  • Review the project's documentation and guidelines
  • Make a meaningful contribution

Career center

Learners who complete Build a Knowledge Based System with Vertex AI Vector Search, LangChain and Gemini will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:

Reading list

We've selected 25 books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in Build a Knowledge Based System with Vertex AI Vector Search, LangChain and Gemini.
Serves as the definitive engineering blueprint for building production applications on multimodal foundation models like Google Gemini, covering long-context prompting, retrieval-augmented generation, agentic tool calling, evaluation pipelines, and latency optimization.
Teaches both developers and business builders how to structure reliable system instructions, few-shot examples, structured JSON outputs, and multimodal chains across Google Gemini and frontier LLM APIs.
Bridges no-code/low-code citizen development and full-stack software engineering, demonstrating how Google Gemini, GitHub Copilot, and natural-language AI assistants accelerate application prototyping, testing, and deployment.
Illustrates with visual clarity how modern transformer foundation models represent text and multimodal inputs, perform semantic search, and power intelligent conversational and agentic applications.
Explores the concept of knowledge creation and how it can be used to drive innovation and growth in organizations. It must-read for anyone who wants to understand how to create and manage knowledge effectively.
Provides a comprehensive overview of knowledge management, including its history, theories, and applications. It valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about this important topic.
Focuses specifically on invoking Google Gemini from Python to generate application code, automate data processing workflows, debug scripts, and prototype AI-powered services rapidly.
Walks practitioners through architecting low-code and code-first generative AI applications using orchestration frameworks, vector databases, memory buffers, and multimodal foundation model APIs.
Unpacks the underlying neural architecture of generative foundation models, showing technical readers how attention mechanisms, pretraining, and instruction tuning operate beneath the Gemini API.
Architects end-to-end generative AI and machine learning workloads on Google Cloud, showing solutions builders how to operationalize Vertex AI, Gemini models, data pipelines, and low-code AutoML services in production.
Equips Python and JavaScript engineers to orchestrate Gemini and frontier language models with LangChain and LangGraph, covering retrieval pipelines, conversational memory, tool calling, and production evaluation.
Examines how Google's integration of Gemini foundation models into Search and AI Overviews reshapes digital communication, content discovery, brand visibility, and information retrieval strategy.
Provides the enduring mathematical foundations of neural representation learning, sequence modeling, and gradient optimization that underpin modern multimodal AI systems like Google Gemini.
Connects LangChain orchestration directly with Google Cloud Vertex AI and Gemini APIs, walking Python developers through enterprise retrieval-augmented generation, vector indexing, and multi-step autonomous agents.
Demystifies visual and low-code machine learning on Google Cloud Vertex AI and BigQuery ML, empowering analysts and citizen developers to assemble predictive and generative AI workflows without heavy custom code.
Explores the potential impact of large language models (LLMs) on society. It discusses the potential benefits of LLMs, as well as the potential risks, and makes recommendations for how we can use LLMs responsibly.
Offers an accessible, research-backed framework for non-programmers, educators, and citizen developers collaborating with frontier AI systems like Gemini as creative co-workers and tutors.
Explores the role of knowledge management in innovation. It valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how organizations can use knowledge to create new products and services.
Explores the role of knowledge management in competitive advantage. It valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how organizations can use knowledge to gain an edge over their competitors.
Explores the role of knowledge management in the public sector. It valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how government agencies can use knowledge to improve their performance.
Explores the relationship between knowledge management and organizational learning. It valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about how organizations can use knowledge to improve their performance.
Distills core engineering patterns for reliable AI agents built atop frontier multimodal models like Gemini, covering structured outputs, memory management, tool invocation, routing, and evaluation loops.
Details how to architect multimodal retrieval-augmented generation pipelines using Google's Gemini Embedding 2 model, indexing text, images, documents, and audio into unified vector spaces for grounded AI synthesis.
Explores how AI researchers train large foundation models to follow human values, mitigate representation bias, avoid hallucination, and behave safely when deployed to millions of users.

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