AI-901 is the new Azure AI Fundamentals baseline: what changes and what to do about it
As of 30 June 2026, AI-900 is retired. AI-901 is the new Azure AI Fundamentals baseline, and it tests different things than its predecessor. Here’s what you need to know, whether you’re planning to take the exam, already certified, or just keeping track of where Microsoft has set the bar.
What stays the same
The credential is still called Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Fundamentals. If you already have an AI-900 badge, you keep it: it doesn’t expire and there’s no recertification requirement. Nothing changes on your profile, and Microsoft expects nothing extra from existing holders.
What does change is the exam itself, and that shift is more than cosmetic.
How AI-901 is structured
The new exam has two domains:
Domain 1 (40–45%): Identify AI concepts and capabilities. Responsible AI principles, model components, and identifying AI workloads. This domain overlaps most with AI-900.
Domain 2 (55–60%): Implement AI solutions using Microsoft Foundry. Generative AI and agents, text and speech, computer vision and image generation, information extraction. This is where the exam’s centre of gravity sits.
Microsoft Foundry, the new name for what was previously Azure AI Foundry, announced at Ignite 2025, is the platform where you build AI applications and agents today. AI-901 has been rewritten around it. That’s not a detail; it’s the whole point of the update.
Three things that are genuinely different
Foundry is now in the exam. With AI-900, understanding which Azure AI services exist was enough. AI-901 expects you to know Foundry as a build environment: configuring an analyser, deploying a model, setting up a lightweight agent. Pure conceptual knowledge isn’t sufficient anymore.
Agents are now officially foundational. Conversational AI and agentic patterns used to sit outside the AI-900 fundamentals. That’s no longer the case. Microsoft has raised the baseline: if you work with Copilot, agents, or Foundry, you’re operating at the expected foundational layer, not in specialist territory.
Basic Python is now listed as a prerequisite. AI-900 didn’t require it. AI-901 expects familiarity with Python syntax and programming principles. You don’t need to be a developer, but as soon as you’re prototyping in Foundry, that knowledge pays off immediately, and for the exam it’s simply required.
What this means for your situation
You were planning to take AI-900. That exam is gone. Take AI-901 instead: same credential, different scope. The new official course is AI-901T00-A: Introduction to AI in Azure, replacing the AI-900T00-A materials, which are now marked as deprecated on Microsoft Learn.
You already have AI-900. There’s nothing you need to do. Your badge stays, your credential stands. AI-901 is the successor for new candidates, not a mandatory next step for people who are already certified.
You’re working in a Copilot or Fabric team without exam plans. It’s worth knowing that AI-901 codifies the foundational layer your team is already building on. The exam isn’t mandatory, but its scope tells you exactly what Microsoft considers the expected baseline for anyone working with Foundry and agents. That’s a useful reference point, badge or no badge.
A note on the transition
The Microsoft Learn learning paths for AI-900 have been marked as deprecated. If you’re starting to study now, go straight to the AI-901 materials and skip the old AI-900 paths; they’re not being maintained.
Where to start
The official materials are on Microsoft Learn: the AI-901 exam page, the study guide (updated 15 April 2026), and the credential page.
Want to figure out which learning path fits your situation? Have a look at trainerbjorn.nl/ai-901 for an overview, or reach out if you have a question. Happy to think it through with you.