Build powerful, AI-driven web applications with Ruby on Rails - from your very first line of code to production deployment. Ruby on Rails with AI is the definitive beginner-to-practitioner guide for developers who want to master Rails and immediately apply it in the era of modern AI. Written for 2026, this book takes you from Ruby fundamentals all the way to shipping real-world, AI-powered web applications used by companies like GitHub, Shopify, and Basecamp.
Author Thomas Scott delivers a structured, hands-on journey that builds genuine engineering skills - not just code-along tutorials. Every concept is grounded in how professional Rails developers actually work.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN:
- Ruby fundamentals: variables, methods, classes, and object-oriented programming
- The Rails philosophy: Convention over Configuration, DRY, and MVC architecture
- Routing, controllers, views, models, and Active Record
- CRUD operations, forms, validations, and authentication
- RESTful API development with Rails
- Background jobs, Action Cable, real-time features, and caching
- Testing, security, performance optimisation, and clean code practices
- Deployment with Docker and cloud platforms
- Integrating AI APIs and working with OpenAI and LLMs in Rails
- Prompt engineering for Rails-based AI workflows
- Building AI-powered chatbots, search, and recommendation systems
- Automating business workflows and content generation with AI
- Five complete real-world projects: task manager, customer support chatbot, content generation platform, smart recommendation system, and a document analysis tool
WHY THIS BOOK:
Rails has a 20-year track record of helping small teams ship big products fast. Its "Convention over Configuration" philosophy means less boilerplate and more building. In 2026, that productivity advantage is amplified further by AI - and this book shows you exactly how to combine them. Whether you are building a SaaS product, an internal tool, or an AI-powered service, Rails gives you the full stack you need, and this book shows you how to use it.
Includes comprehensive appendices covering the Rails CLI, Active Record, routing, common gems, validations, HTTP status codes, a full glossary, a debugging cheat sheet, and recommended learning resources.
Perfect for: complete beginners, developers transitioning from other frameworks, entrepreneurs building web products, and anyone who wants to ship AI-powered web applications without spending months on setup.
