Introduction to AI Agents

Learning Objectives

1. 1Look at a process you already run and say whether an agent would help, including how it differs from the automation already in the close.
2. 2Tell rules-based automation, generative AI, and agentic AI apart, and say what a workflow can reach.
3. 3Decide when a prompt has to be explicit, write one from a source file, a completed file, and instructions, and turn repeated rules into an SOP.
4. 4Decide what can go into an AI tool, whether to build or buy, who still signs, how to share the method without the data, and what leadership needs in place.

Module 1

This is one course. More courses can be added later. Module 1 has three lessons. Each lesson is one scrolling page. Overview, Walkthrough, Concept, and Knowledge check unlock in place on the first lesson. Finish a lesson to unlock the next one.

1. Lesson 1 · 4 sections

   What an AI Agent Is

   You will learn what people actually mean when they say AI, how an agent differs from the automation already sitting in your close, why a workflow stops when it needs something nobody connected, and where all of this shows up in the work you do every month.

2. Lesson 2 · 5 sections

   Prompting for Accounting Work

   You’ll learn what a model actually does with a prompt, what a strong prompt includes, when you need to be explicit and when a generic request is enough, what a chat can see and what it forgets, how to write prompts built on a source file, a completed file, and instructions, and how to turn the rules you keep repeating into an SOP.

3. Lesson 3 · 5 sections

   Security, Judgment & Governance

   You’ll learn what to look for before trusting an AI tool with your data, what building your own tool asks of you compared with buying one, where a person stays accountable once the work is automated, how to share what works without sharing the data behind it, and what leadership needs to put in place so it all holds together.

Glossary

The full list stays on the glossary.

Agentic AI

Breaks a goal into steps, selects which tools to use, and carries out multi step actions with limited supervision. It decides the steps, you review the result.

Generative AI

Produces new content in response to a written instruction, rather than retrieving a stored answer. You decide the steps, it writes the content.

Hallucination

The industry term for invented output.

Prompt

Whatever you hand the model to work from. A question, an instruction, a spreadsheet, a PDF, or all of those in one message.

Rules-based automation

Follows conditional instructions a person wrote, producing the same output for the same input every time. You wrote every step.

SOP

A written, step-by-step description of how a task gets done at your organization. It captures the steps, the rules, and the checks, so the task comes out the same way no matter who does it or which month it is.

Workflow

A path somebody drew in advance. It reaches only the systems it was wired to reach, and it cannot work out that one answer has to come before another.

CPE and completion

Program level

Overview

Field of study

Accounting

Delivery method

Group Internet Based

Prerequisites

Familiarity with a monthly close. No prior AI coursework.

Advance preparation

None. Bring one process you ran last month.

Completion

Finish every lesson in Module 1, then the course knowledge check (70% to pass). Completing these pages is not the same as receiving awarded CPE credit.

Truewind Academy offers CPE-eligible training. Truewind is a NASBA-registered CPE sponsor (id 171888). Delivery is Group Internet Based. This site does not list credit hours. Completing these screens is not the same as receiving awarded credit.