Browse CSI Exams - Securities, Wealth, and Planning Study Hubs

CSI AIS Guide

Study guide hub for CSI Advanced Investment Strategies (AIS) with current structure, weighting, route-fit notes, and exact web practice.

Use this page as the main guide home for the CSI Advanced Investment Strategies course on SecuritiesMastery.com. AIS is the advanced wealth-management and portfolio-judgment lane: client constraints, analysis, alternatives, taxation, portfolio solutions, and investment-protection logic matter more than isolated product memorization.

Use exact web practice when you want timed mixed review, current progress tracking on Web, and a cleaner handoff from reading into exam-mode repetition.

Exam snapshot

ItemValue
ProviderCSI
Official course nameAdvanced Investment Strategies (AIS)
Current official exam structureProctored multiple-choice exam, 75 questions, 2 hours, 60% passing grade, 3 attempts
Highest-weight areasUnderstanding the Client and the Portfolio Management Process at 19%, then Fundamental and Technical Analysis at 15%
Exact practice statusfull exam-specific web practice is live
Current route noteas of April 13, 2026, CSI says that effective January 1, 2026 AIS is no longer acceptable for CIRO approval with an Investment Dealer, though CSI also notes there may be circumstances where AIS is accepted for the CIM designation

Where AIS fits

If the candidate mainly needs…Better first instinct
advanced wealth-management and portfolio judgment for advisers or plannersAIS
institutional or discretionary portfolio management with stronger operating-model depthPMT
portfolio-management foundations before the advanced layerIMT Exam 1 and IMT Exam 2
broader wealth-management foundations before advanced strategyWME Exam 1 and WME Exam 2

How to use this hub well

  • Start with client constraints, process, and analysis before you chase product structures or alternatives.
  • Keep alternatives, taxation, and protection tools tied to suitability, liquidity, and after-tax outcomes.
  • Use the review pages for frameworks and decision quality, then use exact practice to train speed on the 75-question structure.
  • If your real need is discretionary portfolio-management operations or mandate design, compare with PMT.

What stronger AIS answers usually do

  • identify the dominant client constraint before choosing the product or solution
  • connect analysis to portfolio implications instead of reciting ratios or indicators in isolation
  • treat alternatives as suitability and liquidity decisions, not as return shortcuts
  • keep taxation, protection, and impediments inside the same client-outcome frame

In this section

Revised on Thursday, April 23, 2026