Master R programming and build real AI-powered data applications - no prior coding experience required. R Programming with AI is the complete beginner-to-practitioner guide for anyone who wants to learn R and apply it across data science, machine learning, and modern AI workflows. Written for 2026, this premium edition takes you from your very first line of R code to deploying a fully functional, AI-powered analytics dashboard.
Author Thomas Scott brings over a decade of hands-on experience to a book that is practical above all else. Every concept is grounded in real code, real data, and real applications - not toy examples.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
- R fundamentals: variables, data types, vectors, lists, data frames, and control flow
- Working with the tidyverse: data cleaning with dplyr and beautiful visualizations with ggplot2
- Exploratory data analysis and statistical reasoning in R
- Machine learning with caret and tidymodels: regression, classification, and feature engineering
- Connecting R to AI APIs and working with large language models
- Prompt engineering techniques for R-based AI workflows
- Embeddings, semantic search, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
- Building autonomous AI agents and automation workflows
- Interactive dashboards with Shiny
- Production deployment and best practices for real-world R applications
- Full capstone project: a deployable AI-powered analytics dashboard
WHY THIS BOOK:
R was built by people who understood data - how it is collected, how it gets messy, and how to reason about it honestly. With over 20,000 packages on CRAN, exceptional statistical depth, and ggplot2's publication-quality visualizations, R remains the gold standard for data science and research. This 2026 Premium Edition adds complete coverage of the AI tools data professionals are using right now: prompt engineering, RAG, embeddings, and agent orchestration.
Used by Google, Airbnb, the BBC, and thousands of research institutions worldwide, R is a career-defining skill - and this is the book that teaches it properly.
Includes comprehensive appendices covering R syntax, dplyr, ggplot2, tidymodels, AI and ellmer integration, essential packages, a full glossary, common errors and fixes, and RStudio keyboard shortcuts.
Perfect for: aspiring data scientists, analysts, researchers, students, and professionals who want to move beyond spreadsheets and into the world of intelligent, data-driven applications.
