Becoming a chartered financial analyst (CFA)—a certification that requires thousands of hours of professional experience, as well as taking a very rigorous exam; Investopedia calls it “one of the most respected designations in finance”—is no easy feat. That is, until now.

Two years ago, AI models could only pass the first two sections of the prestigious, three-part exam. The essay section, however, had it stumped.

And yet, in a new study from New York University’s Stern School of Business and GoodFin, an AI-powered wealth management platform, advanced AI like Gemini 2.5 Pro and Claude Opus passed the exam with flying colors. What would’ve taken a human 1,000 hours of studying over multiple years took AI a matter of minutes. Just two years ago, analysts were saying that it would never be

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