AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models by Chip Huyen

AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models by Chip Huyen

AI Engineering: Building Applications with Foundation Models is a highly regarded book by computer scientist and author Chip Huyen, published by O'Reilly Media.

Following the massive success of her previous bestseller, Designing Machine Learning Systems, this book shifts the focus from traditional, training-heavy ML workflows to the modern landscape of building with pre-trained foundation models (like GPT-4, Claude, and open-source alternatives).The book addresses a massive paradigm shift in tech: AI development has transformed from an esoteric discipline requiring a PhD into a powerful development tool for general software engineers. Huyen focuses on a product-first, engineering-driven framework rather than deep mathematical theory. It answers the practical questions engineers face when trying to ship AI to production:

It is a technical handbook geared toward Software Engineers, ML Engineers, Data Scientists, and Technical Product Managers who understand how to code but need a reliable blueprint to build robust, scalable, and cost-effective AI features without getting lost in the hype.To hear the author discuss the core concepts of the book directly, you can watch this. In this video, she discusses the concrete differences between ML engineering and AI engineering, the nuances of model evaluation, and why fine-tuning is often not the first tool you should reach for.