AI-900 Exam Guide: Azure AI Fundamentals, Now AI-901

Microsoft retired the AI-900 exam on June 30, 2026. Its official pages now say candidates must pass AI-901 to earn the Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals certification.

This guide explains what AI-900 covered, what you should check before buying a voucher, and how to study the topics in about four weeks.

Microsoft retired AI-900 on June 30, 2026

The official exam page carries a warning: "The AI-900 exam was retired on June 30, 2026, and has been replaced by AI-901." The study guide adds the exact cutoff: June 30, 2026, at 11:59 PM Central Standard Time.

That changes how you should use this page. The AI-900 skills outline is still a good map of Azure AI basics. But the credential now runs through AI-901.

Check the AI-901 study guide on Microsoft Learn before you study, because how its skills differ from AI-900 is not confirmed here.

What the certification proves and who it suits

The exam tested whether you can describe machine learning and AI concepts and the related Microsoft Azure services. It was written for people with both technical and non-technical backgrounds. Data science and software engineering experience were not required.

Microsoft says you would benefit from knowing two things:

• Basic cloud concepts

• Client-server applications

The certification is not a prerequisite for anything. Microsoft does say you can use it to prepare for role-based certifications such as Azure Data Scientist Associate or Azure AI Engineer Associate.

Skills measured and their weights

These are the skills measured as of May 2, 2025, the last English update listed on the official exam page.

Generative AI carries the most weight. The study guide lists Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI service and the Azure AI Foundry model catalog under that area.

The other areas name specific topics too:

• AI workloads: computer vision, natural language processing, document processing and generative AI workloads. You also need the six responsible AI principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability.

• Machine learning: regression, classification, clustering, deep learning, the Transformer architecture, features and labels, and training and validation data. You also cover automated machine learning, data and compute services for data science and machine learning, and model management and deployment in Azure Machine Learning.

• Computer vision: image classification, object detection, optical character recognition, facial detection and analysis, Azure AI Vision and Azure AI Face.

• NLP: key phrase extraction, entity recognition, sentiment analysis, language modeling, speech recognition and synthesis, translation, Azure AI Language and Azure AI Speech.

Exam facts, price and voucher terms

Microsoft says price depends on the country or region where you sit the exam. It also says prices can change without notice and exclude taxes.

Here is how our store policy works:

• Your code is emailed within 12 hours of payment and also appears in your account.

• You can cancel an order for a full refund before delivery.

• A delivered code is non-refundable unless the test provider rejects it as invalid, already used or expired on first use.

• In that case, contact support within 14 days with your order number and a screenshot. We replace or refund the code.

Full terms are on our refund page and delivery page.

Should you buy, wait or switch?

Microsoft says the exam is retired, so a voucher for it may be rejected at booking. That is a real risk. The refund rule above applies only after a delivered code is rejected for the listed reasons. Use this table to decide.

A 4-week study plan with hours

This plan totals about 21 hours. It spends the most time on generative AI because it has the highest weight. Adjust it to the AI-901 outline once you have checked it.

1. Week 1 (5 hours): AI workloads and the six responsible AI principles. Write one real-world example for each principle.

2. Week 2 (5 hours): Machine learning. Practice telling regression, classification and clustering apart. Learn features, labels, and training versus validation data.

3. Week 3 (5 hours): Computer vision and NLP. Match each task, such as OCR or sentiment analysis, to the Azure service that handles it.

4. Week 4 (6 hours): Generative AI, then a full review. Cover Azure AI Foundry, Azure OpenAI service and the model catalog. Finish with Microsoft's free practice assessment.

Worked example: Say a practice question describes predicting next month's sales from past sales. The output is a number, so it is regression. If the output were "will churn" or "won't churn", it would be classification. If there were no labels and you only grouped similar customers, it would be clustering. Doing this sort of sorting for 10 minutes a day is worth more than rereading notes.

Common mistakes

• Using an old outline for a new exam. Check which exam code you are actually booking, and read its current study guide.

• Skipping generative AI. It is the heaviest area at 20–25%.

• Memorizing service names without matching them to tasks. Questions describe a scenario. You pick the service or technique.

• Treating dumps as a shortcut. They are often outdated, and they break exam rules. Use Microsoft's free practice assessment instead.

• Registering with a work account. Microsoft strongly recommends a personal Microsoft account. Records tied to an organizational account can be lost if you leave the organization.

What to do after you pass

Once you pass the current Azure AI Fundamentals exam, your certification appears in your Microsoft Learn profile. Microsoft's renewal process covers associate, expert and specialty certifications, which expire annually and renew through a free online assessment.

A sensible next step is a neighboring fundamentals exam such as AZ-900 Azure Fundamentals. You can also browse our AI & Machine Learning certifications.

If you still want the AI-900 voucher, contact our support first and confirm it can be used before you pay.

Sources

• Exam AI-900: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals (Microsoft Learn)

• Study guide for Exam AI-900: Microsoft Azure AI Fundamentals (Microsoft Learn)