Program profile · official sources
Prompt Design, Grounding, and RAG with Vertex AI Specialization
A Google Cloud build path from prompt design to grounded, retrieval-based Gemini applications on Vertex AI.
Commercial status: no commercial relationship is documented for this page. The verification link goes directly to the official provider source.
Who it is for
Developers and cloud practitioners who want to build grounded generative AI applications on Google Cloud with Gemini, embeddings and Vertex AI Vector Search.
Who should skip it
Skip it if you need a provider-neutral RAG course or one outside Google Cloud; the labs use Google Cloud tools including Vertex AI, Gemini models and Vertex AI Vector Search.
Facts checked 26 Oct 2026
- Price
- See pricing
No accepted price. As shown in the United States on 26 October 2026, the Coursera programme page shows no programme amount: it lists the programme as included with Coursera Plus. The Coursera Plus page prices Coursera Plus at $59/month, cancel anytime, or $399/year with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Those are subscription prices for the whole Coursera Plus catalogue, not a programme or completion price.
- Provider link
See price and enroll at Google Cloud (official site) ↗
Official site. No commission.
- Time
- Coursera headline: 4 weeks at 10 hours a week. The ten course estimates (1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 7, 2, 2, 4 and 1 hours) total 24 hours. Provider estimates, not completion guarantees.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Credential
- Career certificate
Shareable certificate; add to a LinkedIn profile.
- Prerequisites
- No formal prerequisite is stated. Coursera labels the specialization intermediate; the FAQ says it begins with introductory courses on generative AI, large language models, prompt design and Vertex AI, then moves to intermediate topics.
- Format
- Online, self-paced ten-course specialization on Coursera, taught in English with 8 languages available; hands-on Google Cloud labs and application-building activities. Coursera marks it recently updated, August 2026.
Sources ↗
What you actually do
Hands-on Google Cloud labs prototype Gemini in Vertex AI Studio, generate structured responses, build semantic and hybrid search with Vertex AI Vector Search and run multimodal RAG; course 6 includes building an LLM and RAG-based chat application.
Before you start
No formal prerequisite is stated. Coursera labels the specialization intermediate; the FAQ says it begins with introductory courses on generative AI, large language models, prompt design and Vertex AI, then moves to intermediate topics.
Curriculum
The headline estimates four weeks at ten hours weekly; the ten course estimates total 24 hours. These observations are not reconciled into one completion or billing period.
| Entry | Subject | Listed time | Share | Role | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to Generative AI | 1 hour | 4.2% | Course 1 of 10. Define generative AI; how it works; model types; applications. | 2026-10-26 |
| 2 | Introduction to Large Language Models | 1 hour | 4.2% | Course 2 of 10. Define LLMs; LLM use cases; prompt tuning; Google's gen AI development tools. | 2026-10-26 |
| 3 | Introduction to Vertex AI Studio | 2 hours | 8.3% | Course 3 of 10. Prompt-to-production lifecycle in Vertex AI Studio; prototyping with Gemini multimodal capabilities; prompt design; tuning methods. | 2026-10-26 |
| 4 | Generative AI with Vertex AI: Prompt Design | 2 hours | 8.3% | Course 4 of 10. Getting started with prompt engineering and text generation use cases; the listing names the PaLM API. | 2026-10-26 |
| 5 | Grounding Gemini Models in Vertex AI | 2 hours | 8.3% | Course 5 of 10. Controlled generation in the Vertex AI Gemini API: response schemas and structured outputs. | 2026-10-26 |
| 6 | Create Generative AI Apps on Google Cloud | 7 hours | 29.2% | Course 6 of 10. Gen AI application types; prompt templates; RAG-capable architectures on Google Cloud; build an LLM and RAG-based chat application. | 2026-10-26 |
| 7 | Multimodal Use Cases with Gemini 1.5 | 2 hours | 8.3% | Course 7 of 10. Text, PDF, image, video, code and audio scenarios; an e-commerce use case. | 2026-10-26 |
| 8 | Introduction to Vertex AI Embeddings: Text and Multimodal | 2 hours | 8.3% | Course 8 of 10. Text and multimodal embeddings APIs; simple search with e-commerce data. | 2026-10-26 |
| 9 | Vector Search and Embeddings | 4 hours | 16.7% | Course 9 of 10. Vector search; semantic search with Vertex AI Vector Search; grounded agents and RAG; a hybrid search engine. | 2026-10-26 |
| 10 | Multimodal Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) using the Vertex AI Gemini API | 1 hour | 4.2% | Course 10 of 10. Metadata and embeddings for text-and-image documents; text and image queries; contextual answers from both. | 2026-10-26 |
Allocation denominator: 1440.0 summed minutes; each displayed share = entry minutes / 1440.0 × 100, rounded to one decimal.
US price
| Purchase information | Recorded terms |
|---|---|
| Access and billing | No accepted price. As shown in the United States on 26 October 2026, the Coursera programme page shows no programme amount: it lists the programme as included with Coursera Plus. The Coursera Plus page prices Coursera Plus at $59/month, cancel anytime, or $399/year with a 14-day money-back guarantee. Those are subscription prices for the whole Coursera Plus catalogue, not a programme or completion price. |
| Refund and trial | Coursera Plus page, 26 October 2026: the monthly plan has a 7-day free trial (no charge until it ends); the annual plan allows a refund request within 14 days of payment, and certificates earned in those 14 days are revoked if you take the refund. |
| Access-source disagreement | As shown in the United States on 26 October 2026: the page structured data marks the programme isAccessibleForFree=True with a Subscription offer, while the visible FAQ says you cannot take this course for free. No free completion or free certificate is inferred. |
Alternatives
Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
| Provider and format | Level | Workload | Award | US price observation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DeepLearning.AI · Online, self-paced course with 49 video lessons, 9 code examples and 10 graded assignments in five modules; also offered on Coursera | Intermediate | Coursera page (27 October 2026): 3 weeks at 10 hours a week, modules of 6, 6, 6, 7 and 6 hours to complete. DeepLearning.AI course page (27 October 2026), a different estimate: 26h3m of content and about a month at about 5 hours per week. Both are recorded as shown; no combined duration is computed. | Course completion certificate | As shown in the United States on 27 October 2026, the DeepLearning.AI course page shows no price: the certificate comes with the PRO membership, whose plan amounts did not render on the captured membership page. On Coursera the course is shown as included with Coursera Plus, displayed at $59/month (7-day free trial, cancel anytime) or $399/year (14-day money-back guarantee). These are subscription prices, not a fixed course completion total. |
| Entry and assessment questions | Recorded answer |
|---|---|
| Who is it aimed at? | Engineers working in AI who want to design, build and evaluate production RAG systems, with intermediate Python and basic generative AI knowledge. |
| What preparation is required? | No admission requirement is stated on the captured pages. Recommended background: intermediate Python skills are required; basic knowledge of generative AI and high school level math is helpful. |
| What remains unconfirmed? | Not verified in saved official evidence: expiry_renewal. Do not infer no expiry or no exam from absence. |
Official source · 2026-10-27 | Official source · 2026-10-27 | Official source · 2026-10-27 | Official source · 2026-10-27
Introduction to Generative AI Learning Path Specialization
| Provider and format | Level | Workload | Award | US price observation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Cloud · Online, flexible, self-paced four-course specialization taught in English with 28 languages available. Applied learning consists primarily of interactive quizzes with immediate feedback on concepts and terminology. | Intermediate | Hero: 4 weeks at 10 hours per week; four course estimates total 4 hours 16 minutes. Conflicting provider estimates with distinct scopes, not completion guarantees. | Career certificate | As shown in the United States on 1 October 2026, the page lists Coursera Plus inclusion but no numeric access price is verified. No separately normalized program purchase price is established. |
| Entry and assessment questions | Recorded answer |
|---|---|
| Who is it aimed at? | Learners seeking a structured introduction to generative AI, large language models, their applications, and responsible-AI development and deployment, including organizational adoption of AI principles. |
| What preparation is required? | Some related experience required; the program page does not specify a particular language, tool, credential or formal prerequisite. |
| What remains unconfirmed? | Not verified in saved official evidence: expiry_renewal, exam_requirement. Do not infer no expiry or no exam from absence. |
Official source · 2026-10-01 | Official source · 2026-10-15
Official source · 2026-10-15 | Official source · 2026-10-01 | Official source · 2026-10-01
Questions before enrolling
Can I take just one course from the Prompt Design, Grounding, and RAG specialization?
Yes, per the FAQ: you can enroll in a single course and complete it to earn a shareable certificate for that course. Subscribing to a course that is part of the specialization automatically subscribes you to the full specialization. Observed 26 October 2026.
Change log
- : Initial record from the official Coursera specialization page and the Coursera Plus page captured from the United States on 23 October 2026. · Source
- : Fresh US recheck on 26 October 2026 of the Coursera programme page and the Coursera Plus page: no recorded fact changed (programme facts as before; Coursera Plus still $59/month or $399/year, with the 7-day trial and the 14-day refund terms as before); observation dates renewed to 26 October 2026. · Source