SELF-PACED COURSE
How To Build Your First AI Agent From Scratch
Learn how to build an AI agent to hand off your repetitive tasks so you can focus on strategic work. Become the person your company relies on for AI, even if you’ve never built anything with it before. This course is for CMAs, CPAs and finance pros who want their edge back. No coding skills needed.
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Taught by Nathan Liao, CMA
from Your Instructor
I have 11 AI agents working alongside me every day
When I started building AI agents, I couldn't tell you the difference between a chatbot, an agent, a skill and a workflow.
I figured it out by building an agent for my own work, one confusing step at a time.
So I turned my many months of learning and testing into a course that cuts your learning curve down to only 3.5 hours.
I figured it out by building an agent for my own work, one confusing step at a time.
So I turned my many months of learning and testing into a course that cuts your learning curve down to only 3.5 hours.
WHY BUILD AN AI AGENT
Spend your time on the work that moves your career forward
You'll write the Identity · Soul · Rules · Memory files that teach your agent your role and your company. Then you’ll put it to work and free up your time for strategic decisions only you can make.
Before: every morning you open a fresh AI chat window, and you start over.
After: your AI agent already knows your role, your company and how you like to work. So you stop explaining yourself every time, and it takes real work off your plate.
And if you've only used AI as a chatbot, you can catch up faster than you think. The fastest way I know is to learn to build an AI agent.
Treat AI skills like Excel skills. They give you an edge, and a company will hire and keep the one who has them.
Before: every morning you open a fresh AI chat window, and you start over.
After: your AI agent already knows your role, your company and how you like to work. So you stop explaining yourself every time, and it takes real work off your plate.
And if you've only used AI as a chatbot, you can catch up faster than you think. The fastest way I know is to learn to build an AI agent.
Treat AI skills like Excel skills. They give you an edge, and a company will hire and keep the one who has them.
To build AI agents, you don't need:
Coding or a tech background
You write your agent's instructions in plain English, so there's no programming language to learn.
Expensive software
VS Code, the editor you'll use, is free from Microsoft. You'll only need a paid Claude or ChatGPT account.
Prompt-writing skills
Your agent interviews you about your work, one question at a time, and your answers become its instructions.
Knowing the AI terms
The course opens with the difference between a chatbot, an agent and a skill, and the glossary explains the rest.
HOW IT WORKS
Three steps to your first AI agent
SNEAK PEEK
Don't take our word for it.
Watch two real lessons.
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Everything you get
What You'll Learn
Course Description:
Who Should Take This Course?
Management Accountants
You've seen AI everywhere and haven't built anything with it yet. Your agent knows your role, the cost centers you own and your close calendar, so the commentary you write every close starts as a draft.
Finance
Professionals
AI went from novelty to expectation, and nobody handed you a starting point. This is it: one agent that works, and enough understanding to build the next one.
Accountants
You'd use AI more if you trusted it with anything real. Your agent knows your conventions, follows the rules you write down, and gives you output built to your standard.
FP&A
You own the forecast, the variance narrative and the ad-hoc requests. You'll turn variance commentary into a skill you run on demand and check against the source figures.
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Meet Your Instructor
Nathan Liao, CMA
Nathan Liao is based in sunny Southern California. He is the founder of CMA Exam Academy, a leading program that helps people worldwide pass the Certified Management Accountant exam. As a CMA himself, Nathan knows the industry inside out. For over a decade, he's dedicated to helping finance and accounting professionals grow their skills and succeed in today's business world. Nathan has coached thousands of professionals worldwide.
Frequently Asked Questions
I'm not technical. Will I be able to keep up?
Yes, and the course was built starting from that assumption. Nathan built his first agent as a beginner and the lessons follow the order he actually needed things explained in. You'll write plain English into text files. That is the entire technical skill.
Do I need to know how to code?
No, and you won't write a single line. The course opens a code editor because it's the simplest tool for working with a folder of text files, and a few minutes go into showing you the three parts of the screen you use and the rest you can ignore.
What do I need before I start?
A paid Claude or ChatGPT account. A free plan will not get you through this course. You'll also need a Windows or Mac computer where you can install software, because you'll install Visual Studio Code, which is free, in lesson 2.2. The videos are taught in Claude, so that's what to follow along in. Everything you build is plain text files, so it moves to another AI tool that can read a folder of files whenever you want it to. Lesson 2.3 covers why that works.
Will this count for my CPE requirement?
Yes, as long as your state board or certifying body accepts courses from sponsors on NASBA's National Registry. CPE Flow is a registered sponsor (Sponsor ID 149952), and this course carries 4 CPE credits in Information Technology.
Is this the same as using ChatGPT or Copilot?
No, and that difference is the point of the opening module. A chat starts over every time you open it. An agent reads a set of files before it answers, so it already knows your role, your company and how your work runs. You'll see both side by side in the first teaching lesson.
Will the agent know management accounting?
It will know what you tell it about your job, and nothing beyond that. Everything the agent holds comes from your own answers about your role, your company, your working context and your conventions. It isn't trained on technical accounting material and it isn't a substitute for your judgment. The course draws that line explicitly, between an agent that drafts and a professional who concludes. That's the line you don't move.
Will my employer reimburse this?
Most employers reimburse continuing professional education courses. You'll get a receipt for your purchase and a certificate of completion when you finish the course. Check with yours first to confirm there's a professional development budget.
How is the course structured?
Self-paced video lessons across three modules, with quizzes throughout and a final assessment. You build alongside the video in your own copy of the tools, so you finish with a working agent rather than notes about one.
one last thing
Build an AI agent that knows your work.
Then hand it the work you repeat every month.
For your records - and for your state board
DELIVERY METHOD
FIELD OF STUDY
CPE CREDITS
KNOWLEDGE LEVEL
PREREQUISITES
ADVANCE PREP
