The Agentic Self is a three-credit ASU course that teaches you how to thoughtfully design and direct AI agents as part of creative, ethical and human-centered work. No coding background or technical major is required. The course is led by will.i.am, founder and CEO of FYI.AI, alongside a teaching team spanning engineering, film and instructional design.
Over the semester, you'll move from foundational concepts to more advanced agent design and collaboration, building a persona that functions as a digital extension of yourself. Guest speakers from research, business and the arts share how they're putting agentic AI to work in their own fields.
"The Agentic Self represents a solution to AI replacing human jobs," will.i.am has said of the course's purpose.
For Dhruv Patel, a computer science student who took the course, the appeal was as much personal as technical.
"I want my agent to be a riffing buddy or a friend I can bounce ideas off of," Patel said. "I want it to think like I do, but with all the computational power and all the other intellectual capabilities that I don't have behind it."
The course is offered in Tempe, Los Angeles and through ASU Online, with online students able to participate synchronously or asynchronously.
How the course is structured: five pillars, five projects
Rather than moving through isolated weekly topics, the course is organized around five pillars. Each one is a different lens on identity, agency and AI collaboration. Each pillar ends in a mini-project that becomes part of your final portfolio.
- Origins of the Agentic Self — How do we define and preserve our humanity in a world increasingly shaped by intelligent systems?
- Output: An agentic origin sketch and reflection.
- Voice, Prompting & LLMs — How can technology help us express, not replace, our human voice?
- Output: A synthetic voice and prompt interaction demo.
- Avatars & Action Layers — How can we design AI personas that reveal human values rather than imitate them?
- Output: An avatar or action-layer prototype.
- Data, GPU & Privacy — What does our data say about who we are, and who gets to decide?
- Output: A data experiment and privacy reflection.
- Expression & Narrative — How do stories help us communicate what it means to be human in collaboration with AI?
- Output: A storyboard and narrative arc.
A sixth pillar, Launch & Reflection, closes the course with your final portfolio and presentation. will.i.am describes the underlying shift in AI that the whole course is built around: "Agentic is the next step, where the agent is able to do tasks and workflows on your behalf," he said. "You set it on its course, and it would reason, research, browse, generate — all autonomously."
The tools: EDU.FYI and a free NVIDIA Jetson
At the center of the course is EDU.FYI — a new ASU and FYI.AI platform built specifically for building and experimenting with agentic AI. It's where you'll do hands-on project work, in-class workshops and the development of your Agentic Self.
ASU provides the core hardware and software at no cost. You'll receive a university-issued NVIDIA Jetson, a compact computer built for AI projects, and an LCD screen for your work. Full access to EDU.FYI comes with your enrollment. No paid subscriptions, tools or textbooks required.
What students are building
Your central project is the agent itself, a persona shaped by your own values, voice and goals. You'll build it through a repeatable creative workflow of experimenting, critiquing, revising and documenting. Because the agent represents you, it raises real ethical questions. You'll work through authorship, consent, bias and privacy, then document the choices you make.
That question of ownership shows up directly in how students describe the experience.
"What I really like about the class is that he's teaching us how to use AI to work on our behalf, because right now AI is owned by the big corporations that get to use your data and you don't have any say," said Jeremiah Holland, a graduate student in narrative and emerging media at ASU’s Los Angeles location. "With this class and with this AI system, the data is under our control and we get to decide how it's used."
Professor Peter Murrieta, one of the course's co-instructors, frames the same idea from a creative-ownership angle.
"The idea of creating an agent for yourself where you own all the materials you're putting into that agent makes it much easier to move forward in the world," he said. "Anything I tell it, I own, and nobody's scraping and learning off of it."
Each instructor in the course is represented by their own purpose-built AI agent, which can interact with students and student-built agents throughout the semester. Human instructors remain fully responsible for instruction, assessment and academic oversight.
Meet the teaching team
will.i.am, Faculty Lead, is a globally recognized artist, producer and technologist whose work spans music, media, education and artificial intelligence. As founder and CEO of FYI.AI, he leads the development of human-centered AI systems focused on creativity, learning and self-expression, and he brings that creator's perspective to the course's questions of identity, voice and responsible AI use.
Dr. Pavan Turaga co-instructs from Tempe as Founding Director of The GAME School at ASU, where he oversees a transdisciplinary group of faculty and degree programs spanning gaming, esports, immersive and AI-enabled media. He holds a joint appointment in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, has taught courses including Machine Learning for Media Arts, and is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER Award as well as a member of the winning XPRIZE Rainforest team.
Professor Peter Murrieta co-instructs from Los Angeles as Interim Associate Dean of the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts and Deputy Director of the Sidney Poitier New American Film School. A multiple Emmy Award-winning writer and producer, his credits include "Mr. Iglesias," "Wizards of Waverly Place," and most recently, "Primo" on Amazon Prime.
Dr. Sean Hobson co-instructs across both Tempe and LA as Chief Design Officer for ASU's EdPlus unit and an Assistant Clinical Professor, where his teaching and research focus on agency, learning science, and how people and institutions adapt during periods of rapid technological change. "Students aren't just studying the future, they're building it," he said of the course. "Learning by doing — that's the whole point."
Is this class right for you and how do you enroll?
The Agentic Self is built for students regardless of major or technical experience. The course requires no coding background, and the portfolio-based grading model rewards iteration and growth over polish. If you're curious about AI but don't see yourself as a "tech person," that's exactly who the course is designed for.
Because the class meets once a week for an extended studio session, attendance and active participation carry real weight in your evaluation. If that hands-on, in-person-heavy format works for your schedule, the course is open to students across majors in Tempe, Los Angeles and through ASU Online.
Enrollment is limited, so early registration matters. Current ASU students can register through My ASU. If you're interested in what else ASU has to offer, explore our 400+ online programs across technology, art, science, business and more to find a program that matches your interests and career goals.
