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The full course in designing AI agents that act on behalf of people
Agentic systems are changing how organisations design and deliver customer experiences. Instead of following rigid workflows or scripts, AI agents reason, take action and coordinate across systems on people's behalf. Every one of those actions either builds Conversational Capital, the trust that compounds slowly and collapses suddenly, or erodes it. Designing these experiences requires a new discipline: Agentic Experience Design (AXD).
The Introduction to Agentic Experience Design gave you the shape of the method. This course teaches you to run it. Six modules take you from first principles to a live, monitored agent, applying the complete 12-step CDI Method to agents that book, approve, transfer and decide. Rather than focusing on prompts or specific tools, it emphasises human-centric design, governance and real-world decision making.
This course forms the foundation of CDI's AXD certification. By the end, you will be able to design, validate and deploy agentic systems that are effective, safe and aligned with real human needs.
Why AXD exists
Traditional Conversational AI answers questions. Agentic systems take action. That shift moves risk from the conversation to the outcome: a wrong answer costs a moment; a wrong action costs money, records, or trust.
AXD is CDI's methodology for that reality. It gives you a systematic way to decide where an agent should act, how much authority it should have, what it must never do, and how to prove all of that before launch and keep proving it afterwards.
What you will learn
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Understand how Conversational Capital compounds and collapses, and why agents that act put it at greater risk than systems that only answer
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Distinguish bots, workflows, assistants and agents, and choose the right one for a use case
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Scope agent use cases by value and risk to trust, and explicitly exclude what should never be automated
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Research users for agentic contexts, including power dynamics, vulnerability and cognitive load
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Select models and platforms on customer outcomes, not benchmarks
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Write project-level guidelines and distinguish them from rules, constraints and policies
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Map human and agent context with the Agentic Canvas and design for mentalizing
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Define golden conversations that set the standard for intent, tone, resolution and dignity
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Write an Agent Charter with role, scope, authority tiers and escalation criteria
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Test designs with stakeholders, users and adversaries before a line of code is written
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Diagnose test findings and fix the right layer: constraint or knowledge
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Build knowledge architecture that resolves Content Debt at source
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Specify tool contracts with inputs, outputs, side effects and reversibility
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Launch through phased rollout with readiness gates, rollback and incident response
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Monitor behaviour and trust, not just containment, and prevent Responsibility Decay
Is this the right course for me?
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Flexible Payment options
Modules
Foundation
Strategy
Design
Build
Operate
Synthesis
Download the full course syllabus
Curious about what you'll learn?
Download the complete syllabus with detailed curriculum breakdown of the 12-step CDI Method, frameworks, skills, and certification requirements.
Skills you'll learn
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Decide where agency belongs and where it would destroy trust
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Map complete context with the Agentic Canvas
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Set authority tiers: act, confirm, escalate
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Write guidelines and an Agent Charter that engineers can implement
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Design and document golden conversations
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Run stakeholder, user and adversarial testing before build
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Structure enterprise knowledge for retrieval
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Specify safe tool contracts for write operations
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Take an agent through readiness gates and phased rollout
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Monitor Conversational Capital trajectory and act on drift
What's included
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Complete AXD methodology: 6 modules and 60 video lessons covering Foundation, Strategy, Design, Build, Operate and Synthesis
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Practical exercises: reflection prompts and hands-on assignments after each lesson, built around the Moonshot case
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Practical frameworks: the downloadable Agentic Canvas, the AXD Blueprint and the full 12-step CDI Method
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Exclusive discounts: preferred pricing for CDI events, workshops and advanced courses
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Community access: the CDI alumni network across healthcare, finance, insurance and enterprise
Additional benefits
Regular Webinars & Expert Classes
Join virtual live sessions and learn from industry practitioners. CDI hosts regular webinars covering agent design implementations, emerging frameworks, regulatory considerations, and real-world case studies.
Join Our Online Community
Connect with 15,000+ CDI-certified professionals across industries. The CDI alumni network spans healthcare systems, financial institutions, insurance companies, and enterprises facing similar autonomous agent challenges. Share implementations, ask questions, learn from peer experiences, and access the international job board.
Live Events & Conferences
As an AXD student, you get discounts to all CDI events. Whether it's virtual festivals or in-person Beyond Boundaries conferences, you'll have early access and preferred pricing.
Professional AXD certification
On completing all modules and assessments you can sit the AXD certification exam. Passing it earns the Professional AXD certification from CDI. The certification ($899) is bought separately from the course and includes the exam and one free retake.
The certification demonstrates:
- Mastery of the 12-step CDI Method applied to autonomous agents
- Ability to scope, charter and bound agents in high-stakes contexts
- Competence in testing, knowledge architecture and tool integration
- Understanding of Conversational Capital and how to protect it at scale
Reasons to get certified
Professional credibility
AXD certification validates your expertise in autonomous agent design, enhancing credibility with employers, clients, and stakeholders in regulated industries.
Industry recognition
As autonomous agents become central to organisational strategy, AXD certification positions you as a qualified expert in this emerging field.
Career advancement
With AXD certification, you're positioned for leadership roles in agent design, Customer Experience (CX) innovation, and product management for autonomous systems.
Skill validation
The certification ensures comprehensive understanding of agent design principles, frameworks, and best practices for trust preservation at scale.
Competitive advantage
In a market flooded with prompt engineering courses, AXD certification demonstrates systematic methodology for designing agents responsibly in high-stakes contexts.
Networking opportunities
Connect with practitioners across healthcare, finance, insurance implementing autonomous agents using AXD frameworks.
Access to resources
Certified professionals gain access to methodology updates, emerging frameworks, webinars, and advanced courses as the field evolves.
Enhanced quality of work
The training enables you to design agents that build Conversational Capital instead of destroying it, protecting your organisation's most valuable asset.
Agentic Experience Design Certificate
Reviews & testimonials
Join students from 50 countries, certified by CDI
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“I've been working as a Conversation Designer for about a year now and I wanted to learn more about training the model. So I did! Thanks Conversation Design Institute for the great course!”
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“I have been through my share of corporate educations, but this hands down one of the best. Conversation Design Institute Conversation Design is masterfully presented by Hans van Dam and provides great hands on advice on ways how to make bots speak human! ”
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