AI-Enabled Personal Finance & Investing

This unit introduces practical personal finance topics (budgeting, taxes, estate planning, college expenses) alongside sector and asset-class investing (stocks, ETFs, real estate, hard assets, CBDCs) and situates them within AI-enabled research and advisory tools. Students will evaluate AI tools, identify biases and fraud risks, and apply insights to realistic investor scenarios to prepare for portfolio construction in the next unit.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze personal finance components—budgeting, income taxes, estate planning, and college funding—and explain how each affects short- and long-term investment decisions
• Apply AI-powered research and advisory tools (e.g., chat-based models, robo-advisors, specialized sites, and curated video/content channels) to generate and document investment and personal finance options, noting tool capabilities and limitations
• Evaluate a range of investment vehicles and sectors (utilities, consumer staples, AI-related small caps and ETFs, precious metals, direct real estate, and CBDC concepts) for suitability relative to defined financial goals and risk profiles
• Demonstrate awareness of ethical and practical risks of AI in finance by identifying bias, fraud, data-privacy concerns, and model limits, and propose mitigation strategies for safe, critical tool use