The reason why AI is so popular is that all of the manual calculations run done by humans can be done by computers. If it takes an analyst 1 minute to run the valuation for a company, the computer can run the valuation model for thousands of companies in the 1 minute.
The problem is, the dataset, or database, is not connected to most of the commercially available programs/apps on your computer. AI is heavily dependent on a large database and needs a program that is capable of managing the large database.
Where will you get the data for the AI to analyze?
Will Excel, or other commonly used programs be able to handle the large data?
No. Excel will most likely freeze running the hundreds of MB/GB of data.
This is why you need to learn C+ or Python, which specializes in running the large data. It is fast, and also has built-in libraries that include specialized equations and mathematical formulas.
Also, with Python, you could scrape data off websites to build a database.
Therefore, I suggest:
Get your foot in the door first at a finance firm
Learn Python, or C+, which seems to be a buzz word for most AI related job positions in Finance
Watch Youtube videos
Install the programs and try fiddling with example code
Try coding so that you can achieve a specific goals