AI for Financial Services

Course syllabus

Module 1: Getting Started with Claude AI

• Explain how Claude works in plain language and identify the model tiers, plans, and interface
• Understand the context window, how Claude processes information, and when to start new conversations
• Practice your first Claude conversation using a financial services–specific prompt
• Identify what Claude does well, what it doesn't, and when human judgment is essential

Module 2: Prompting Fundamentals

• Apply the five-part prompt framework: context, task, format, constraints, and examples
• Supply source material yourself rather than asking Claude to recall figures from memory
• Recognize the difference between extractive and abstractive summarization, and catch qualifier drift before it reaches a reader
• Practice with financial services scenarios: a weak prompt, a fully sourced prompt, and a constrained prompt for the same deliverable

Module 3: Working with Files & Documents

• Upload and analyze images, PDFs, spreadsheets, and documents directly in Claude
• Use Claude to extract, compare, and summarize information from uploaded files
• Work with financial services file types: portfolio reports, compliance checklists, market research PDFs, client account summaries, and regulatory filings
• Complete a hands-on document analysis exercise using provided financial services sample files

Module 4: Projects & Knowledge Bases

• Explain how Projects use custom instructions and knowledge bases to organize ongoing work
• Write effective Project instructions that encode your role, audience, format preferences, and rules
• Upload reference documents and understand how retrieval surfaces relevant material automatically
• Create a financial services Project for a client engagement or compliance review using provided sample documents and templates

Module 5: Artifacts, Skills, Memory & Usage Management

• Create reusable deliverables with Artifacts, and edit them directly or through conversation
• Build a Skill that carries your firm's writing voice, reproduced from real samples rather than described
• Author a reusable Skill that packages a recurring workflow, with its own checkpoints built in
• Configure Memory to retain key context about you and your work across conversations
• Apply usage management techniques to extend your plan value

Module 6: Introduction to Claude Cowork

• Explain what Cowork is and how it differs from the claude.ai chat interface
• Read, write, and manage files from your desktop environment
• Configure guardrails, file permissions, and network settings for safe use
• Understand prompt injection risks and how to protect against them

Module 7: Advanced Prompting & AI Tool Selection

• Use role-based prompting, chain-of-thought reasoning, and multi-step workflows
• Apply web search and the You Ask Me technique to complex, ambiguous tasks
• Evaluate any AI tool for regulated work on a three-axis test: cost including verification, confidentiality, and audit trail
• Practice advanced prompting with financial services scenarios: analyzing a portfolio allocation for a client review, building a compliance audit response step by step, and preparing a quarterly market commentary

Module 8: Context System, Connectors & Integrations

• Build foundational context files and set Global Instructions that apply to every Cowork session
• Connect Claude to Slack, Google Drive, Gmail, and other workplace tools, and assess what each connection actually grants
• Use Claude natively in Excel and PowerPoint with the Office add-ins
• Set up Scheduled Tasks for recurring work such as regulatory watch and periodic reporting, and apply the test for what may run unattended and what may not
• Configure your context system and connections for financial services workflows, including portfolio analysis in Excel and client presentations in PowerPoint

Module 9: Core Financial Services Workflows

• Draft client communications, review letters and quarterly updates, in the order that keeps a fabricated figure structurally impossible
• Produce portfolio analysis narratives and performance commentary that express a conclusion you supplied, reproduced in your firm's voice
• Build compliance documentation and audit-preparation materials that state evidentiary gaps plainly instead of writing around them
• Summarize market research and economic commentary from multiple sources while preserving attribution and disagreement
• Document an internal process as it is actually performed, including the workarounds a designed process leaves out
• Complete a hands-on lab producing a client letter, performance commentary, and a research synthesis from the same verified figures

Module 10: Capstone — Build Your Financial Services Claude System

• Audit your financial services tasks and identify the highest-value opportunities for Claude assistance
• Assemble a personalized financial services Claude system: a Project, context files, a Skill that carries your voice, a packaged reusable Skill, and a scheduled recurring task
• Run a complete end-to-end client service workflow: portfolio review letter, market commentary summary, compliance documentation update, and client meeting preparation brief
• Create a Week 1 action plan for applying what you've learned to your financial services role