Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate

For years the main Azure credential for developers integrating AI services: vision, language, search and Azure OpenAI.

What it signals

Practical assessment: Scenario-based multiple choice. Proctored, scenario-based; labs not documented.
Identity assurance: Proctored with identity verification. Was proctored via Pearson VUE; can no longer be taken.
Depth: Associate. Associate level.
Experience expected: About 1 year. Aimed at working developers; no year count stated officially.
Portability: Mostly vendor-specific. Heavily tied to Azure AI service APIs.
Verifiability: Public badge or registry. Credential is shareable via a Microsoft Learn verification link/transcript carrying an 'Online Verifiable' tag that an employer can open (profile must be public).

For hiring managers

Every AI-102 certification will have lapsed by mid-2027 at the latest, because it can no longer be renewed. After that it appears only as historical.
Still a meaningful signal of Azure AI services experience (vision, language, search, Azure OpenAI), but the pre-2025 versions had little or no generative AI/agent content.
Candidates who want a current credential must pass AI-103 from scratch.

Verifying it

Candidate shares a link from their Microsoft Learn profile: either a per-credential Share link (credentials carry an 'Online Verifiable' tag) or a transcript share link / PDF. The Learn profile must be in public view for the shared credential to be verifiable. Retired credentials remain shareable and stay on the transcript.

What it covers

Published exam outline

Plan and manage an Azure AI solution 20-25%
Implement generative AI solutions 15-20%
Implement an agentic solution 5-10%
Implement computer vision solutions 10-15%
Implement natural language processing solutions 15-20%
Implement knowledge mining and information extraction solutions 15-20%

By topic

GenAI apps: Substantial (20 to 35%). Generative AI domain was 15-20%, plus model selection and vector/semantic search items elsewhere, roughly 20-25%.
Agents: Touched on (under 10%). Agentic solution domain was 5-10%.
Classical ML: Touched on (under 10%). Only custom vision/language model training bullets.
Operations: Some (10 to 20%). Deployment, CI/CD, containers, monitoring and cost management appear across two domains, roughly 10-15%.
Data: Some (10 to 20%). Knowledge mining and information extraction (indexers, skillsets) was 15-20%.
Responsible AI: Touched on (under 10%). Responsible AI was one of four sub-areas of a 20-25% domain.

Exam details

Who the provider says it is for. Azure AI engineers who build, manage and deploy AI solutions using Azure AI.

Format: Microsoft does not publish per-exam formats. Official question types across the programme: multiple choice, drag and drop, build list, hot area, active screen, case studies, and (on some role-based exams) labs. Exam page states: 'This exam will be proctored. You may have interactive components to complete as part of this exam.'
Delivery: Was proctored via Pearson VUE; can no longer be taken.
Code or hands-on work: Candidates were expected to read Python/C# SDK and REST code in questions. No official confirmation of labs; 100-minute duration corresponds to the 'without labs' category.
Prerequisites: None
Recommended experience: Experience developing solutions in Python or C#, using REST APIs and SDKs.
Renewal: NOT renewable any more: the renewal assessment was retired with the certification.
Price notes: USD figure is from third-party sources; Microsoft prices vary by country.

Preparing

AI-102 study guide (official, archived)

Not confirmed

These details were not available from an official source at the time of research.

priceUsd (official pages only say price depends on country; USD figure is from third-party sources)
questionCount (not published per exam)
exact question formats for this specific exam (Microsoft does not disclose)
online-vs-test-centre delivery options were not confirmed on this exam's own page
official wording of the AI-102 -> AI-103 replacement (Tech Community blog could not be rendered)
officially recommended years of experience (none stated)

Sources (10)