AI Basics for Business and Finance Executives: Understand AI Without Writing a Line of Code
Understand AI Without Writing a Line of Code
Stop nodding along in AI meetings. Start making informed decisions about the technology reshaping your industry.
Every executive conversation today involves AI. Vendors pitch it. Boards ask about it. Competitors claim they're using it. But most business and finance leaders are making million-dollar decisions about a technology they don't fundamentally understand. They know the buzzwords but not how LLMs generate output, what "training data" means for compliance, or whether their data is ready for AI.
Eleven structured modules. Written for professionals, business executives, and decision makers building the future in technology and finance. No coding. No math. Just the knowledge you need to lead AI initiatives with confidence.
Who This Is For
Finance Executives Evaluating AI Investments
Your board wants an AI strategy and vendors are lining up with impressive demos. You need to evaluate these investments with the same rigor you apply to any capital allocation decision. This course gives you the frameworks to assess AI opportunities, understand cost structures, and ask the questions that separate real capability from expensive science experiments.
Business Leaders Managing AI Transformation
You're responsible for rolling out AI across your organization — managing expectations from above, resistance from below, and vendor promises from every direction. This course teaches you what AI can and cannot do today, how to build a realistic roadmap, and how to structure pilot programs that lead to production deployments, not just demos that go nowhere.
Product Managers Integrating AI Features
Your product roadmap now includes "AI-powered" everything. You need to make informed build vs buy decisions, evaluate vendors beyond their sales decks, and communicate credibly with your data science team. This course gives you the technical literacy to own AI product decisions without retraining as an engineer.
Banking Professionals Navigating AI Disruption
AI is transforming credit scoring, fraud detection, compliance, and customer service. Regulators are catching up with the EU AI Act and model risk management frameworks. You need to understand both the opportunity and the regulatory landscape — what's possible, what's permissible, and where the industry is headed.
What You'll Learn
After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Distinguish real AI capabilities from vendor hype and marketing
- Evaluate AI vendor proposals using a structured 8-criteria framework
- Understand how LLMs, machine learning, and neural networks work at an executive level
- Build an AI strategy and roadmap for your organization
- Navigate AI risk, bias, and regulatory compliance (EU AI Act, model risk management)
- Assess data readiness and governance requirements for AI initiatives
- Make informed build vs buy decisions for AI capabilities
- Communicate effectively with data science teams and AI vendors
Course Format
- Self-paced written lessons — read anywhere, anytime, on any device
- 11 modules, approximately 5 hours of reading total
- Quiz after each module to reinforce key concepts
- Downloadable AI Readiness Self-Assessment template
- Comparison tables and decision frameworks in every module
- Real company case studies — Upstart, OpenAI, Anthropic, and more
- Updated for 2026 — EU AI Act, current LLM capabilities, AI agents, latest regulatory developments
The 11 Modules
- What AI Actually Is — AI vs automation vs hype. Narrow vs general AI. Where the technology sits on the maturity curve today and why that distinction matters for investment decisions.
- Machine Learning Types — Supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning in plain language. A decision framework for matching ML approaches to business problems.
- Deep Learning and Neural Networks — CNNs, RNNs, and Transformers explained conceptually. Transfer learning, GPU costs, and what drives AI infrastructure spending.
- LLMs and Generative AI — How GPT and Claude actually work. Hallucinations, RAG, prompt engineering for business use, and the real cost structure behind API calls.
- AI Use Cases by Business Function — Where AI delivers value today across sales, marketing, operations, finance, HR, compliance, and customer service. Each use case includes maturity level and ROI timeline.
- AI in Financial Services — Credit scoring (Upstart), fraud detection, algorithmic trading, robo-advisors, and insurance underwriting. The opportunities and regulatory constraints unique to finance.
- Building vs Buying AI — An 8-criteria vendor evaluation framework. Total cost of ownership, realistic build timelines, and case studies of successful and failed approaches.
- Data Strategy for AI — Data quality, governance, privacy regulations (GDPR, CCPA), synthetic data, and data moats. Why your data strategy is your AI strategy.
- AI Risk and Governance — Bias, explainability, the EU AI Act, model risk management, liability, and building governance structures that keep pace with deployment.
- Building an AI Strategy and Roadmap — Opportunity assessment, prioritization, team structure, pilot playbook, and ROI measurement. A step-by-step framework you can adapt to your context.
- The Future of AI in Business — AI agents, multimodal AI, on-device AI, regulation trajectory, and the workforce implications every leader needs to plan for.
Pricing
$147 — One-Time Payment
Lifetime access to all 11 modules, quizzes, downloadable frameworks, and all future updates. Pay once, own it forever.
Early-bird: $97 for the first 100 buyers (2-week enrollment window). Once 100 seats sell or the window closes, the price moves to $147 permanently.
Enroll Now — $97 Early-Bird Price →
$25/month — FinTekCafe Pro Membership
Includes this course plus every premium article and course in the FinTekCafe Pro library — the Digital Payments Masterclass, Technology for Executives, premium fintech articles, and more. New content added regularly. Cancel anytime.
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Executive Bundle — $247
Both Technology for Executives and AI Basics for Executives together. Save $47 versus buying individually. Two courses, 23 modules, covering the full technology landscape executives need.
Get the Executive Bundle — $247 →
All-Access — $297
Every course on FinTekCafe — all three courses, 33 modules total. Save $97 versus buying individually.
All options include a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you complete fewer than three modules and don't find the course valuable, email us within 30 days and we'll issue a full refund. No questions asked.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does this course take to complete?
Roughly 5 hours of core reading — about 25-30 minutes per module. There's no fixed schedule or deadline. Some people finish in a weekend; others do one module per week. The content stays accessible indefinitely.
Do I need a technical background?
No. This course is built for people who don't code. Module 1 starts from first principles, and every concept is explained in plain language with business and finance examples. If you can read a financial report, you have enough context.
I already use ChatGPT and Claude at work. Is this too basic?
Using AI tools and understanding how they work are different things. This course covers how models are built, why they hallucinate, how to evaluate vendors, and how to build an AI strategy. If you're making decisions about AI investments, there's value here even for daily AI users.
How is this different from free AI content online?
Free content covers individual topics well but doesn't provide a structured curriculum for business executives. This course connects every concept to business decisions, includes usable frameworks, and stays current with regulatory changes. It replaces months of scattered reading with a single coherent path.
Is the content specific to financial services?
Module 6 is dedicated to AI in financial services, and finance examples appear throughout. But the frameworks and strategic concepts apply to any industry. Banking and fintech professionals will find especially relevant case studies; the core material works regardless of sector.
Will I get a certificate?
Yes. Complete all 11 modules and quizzes to receive an AI Basics for Executives certificate (PDF) for LinkedIn or professional development records. Completing all three FinTekCafe courses earns the FinTekCafe Executive Certificate.
Can I buy this for my team?
Yes. Corporate pricing starts at $400 per seat (minimum 5 seats) with volume discounts. Contact us at hello@fintekcafe.com for team pricing and invoicing.
Is this course kept up to date?
Yes. The current version covers the EU AI Act, LLM capabilities, AI agents, RAG, and governance developments as of 2026. When significant changes occur, modules are updated at no additional cost.
Built for Leaders, Not Engineers
Built by practitioners at the intersection of finance and technology. Updated for 2026. Written for the executive who needs to make decisions about AI — not build AI.
Enroll Now — $97 Early-Bird Price →
Or start a FinTekCafe Pro membership for $25/month and get this course plus everything in the Pro library.
30-day money-back guarantee. No risk.