How AI is reshaping finance

1. How AI is reshaping finance

Welcome to this DataCamp course on AI for Finance!

2. Meet the instructor

I'm Glenn Hopper, and I'll be your guide on this journey as we dig into some AI tools that can supercharge your productivity and increase your value in the finance organization. My background as a CFO, consultant, and author on AI in finance gives me a front-row seat to how these tools are transforming the field. Let's dive in!

3. How AI is reshaping finance

Imagine it's month-end, and your CFO asks for a quick review of performance. Normally, you'd pull data from spreadsheets, transcripts, and filings.

4. How AI is reshaping finance

But with AI, you can get a first draft of insights in minutes. That's just one example of how AI can save time and surface insights faster.

5. In this course...

In this course, you'll discover practical ways to apply AI, gain hands-on experience streamlining and automating everyday workflows, and develop a clear framework for approaching different AI use cases. We'll work hands-on with Microsoft's Copilot - all within DataCamp's platform, with no installations or tab-switching needed. Although we'll use Copilot in the exercises, the methods and skills you take away will be transferable to any AI platform you or your team might adopt.

6. Augmentation and automation

Let's start by defining two key concepts that will frame everything we do: augmentation and automation. Augmentation means AI supports your judgment, like using Copilot to summarize a 10-K. Automation means AI takes over routine steps, for example, using an agent to schedule and generate monthly reports. Most AI in finance today is augmentation, but automation is growing quickly.

7. AI toolbox

Different AI tools serve different needs in a modern finance workflow. Copilot excels at text-heavy finance tasks - summarizing earnings calls, explaining complex filings, or drafting variance commentary. Perplexity is built for research - scanning market news, benchmarking peers, and tracking regulatory updates, all with cited sources.

8. AI toolbox

Low-code automation tools like n8n support end-to-end workflows - connecting systems, transforming data, and generating reports without writing code.

9. AI toolbox

You might also encounter tools like Claude or Gemini, which can handle similar tasks depending on your platform or preferences. Note that these tools and their capabilities are evolving rapidly. The key is knowing which tool fits the task - and how to prompt it effectively.

10. Know your limits

AI’s capabilities are impressive and ever growing. Tools are great at processing documents quickly, combining structured and unstructured data, and producing clear first drafts. But there are limits. AI can hallucinate, misinterpret context, or miss company-specific nuances. It can also expose risks if used carelessly - for example, by processing sensitive or personally identifiable information (PII) in ways that don't comply with company policies or regulations.

11. Stay in the loop

That's why AI is not a replacement for compliance, governance, or professional judgment. In finance, the human remains firmly in the loop: to review outputs, protect confidential data, and apply domain expertise before any insights are acted on.

12. Let's practice!

Let's start with some simple exercises.

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