Future Interfaces Project: AI Agents
Design, prototype, and evaluate autonomous AI agents that meet the real world. Start working in multidisciplinary teams at the course hackathon, develop your solutions throughout the course, and present your solutions at the community event.
Course Description
Why this course
AI agents, which are programs that act autonomously on behalf of users and systems, are already moving into real organizations: hospitals, banks, engineering firms, design studios. The question is no longer whether agents will be part of the professional world, but how soon and in what form. Understanding them becomes important to any knowledge worker. This course is an opportunity for students to develop a hands-on understanding of how they work and where they're headed.
Designing agents that actually work in real environments requires more than technical skill. It requires understanding human behavior, organizational complexity, and the gap between what an agent can do and what it should do. This is why the course is open to all Master's and PhD students regardless of background, and why teams are built across technology, design and business perspectives. No technical background required.
How the course works
This is a project course. After the opening lecture, the course kicks off with a 24-hour hackathon where teams receive their project brief and produce a first concept. This is followed by four weeks of guided work, with weekly guest lectures across AI, design, philosophy of mind and communication, which are chosen to deepen your understanding and support the project directly. Each team is guided throughout by a dedicated staff member. The course ends at a community event where teams present and demo their solutions to an audience of industry professionals and academics.
Project briefs are provided by industry partners and university faculty. Past courses have drawn on problems from organizations including Nordea, Sitra, QT, Basemark, Kongsberg Maritime and Lähitapiola.
Practical details
3 ECTS · Period V · Tuesdays 16:15–18:00 · Open to all Master's and PhD students from any field · Graded pass/fail · Mandatory attendance including the hackathon weekend. A detailed schedule is available below.
Course schedule
| Time & Date | Topic | Guest lecturer & other info |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 05.05. 16:15–18:00 | Course kickoff: Introduction to the course and AI Agents | Guest lecturer Ville Eloranta |
| Friday 08.05. at 16:00 – Saturday 09.05. at 17:30 | Project-work kickoff hackathon | Food included – no overnight work expected |
| Tuesday 12.05. 16:15–18:00 | AI Agents & Design | Guest lecturer Severi Uusitalo |
| Tuesday 19.05. 16:15–18:00 | Philosophy & AI, differences in human & machine thinking and reasoning | Guest lecturer Lauri Järvilehto |
| Tuesday 26.05. 16:15–18:00 | Pitching & storytelling, preparing final presentations | Guest lecturer Peter Kelly |
| Monday 01.06. 17:00–19:00 | Community event – final presentations and networking with professionals from the industry | External guests from the industry and Aalto. The event includes keynote speakers, project presentations, demos, and catering |
Three reasons to take the course
Gain real industry insight and experience
This course includes theory but is very hands-on. You'll dive straight into projects shaped by real companies. By the end of the course, you'll have a solid overview of how AI Agents are being used and understood (or unused and misunderstood) in industry today.
Grow through collaboration and have fun while at it
The course is open to students from all schools at Aalto. You'll form teams with motivated people from different backgrounds: design, technology, business, and build cutting-edge solutions together.
No technical background required — but technical students belong here too
You don't need to write code to contribute meaningfully. The course makes room for design thinking, systems reasoning and business judgment alongside engineering skill. And the course offers oportunities for anyone to increase their technical depth.