AI-900 vs AI-901: What Changed in Azure AI Fundamentals (2026)

Short answer: AI-900 retired on June 30, 2026. If you’re booking Microsoft’s Azure AI Fundamentals exam today, you’re taking AI-901 — the 2026 refresh of the same certification. Same price, same format, same “no coding required” promise. What changed is the content underneath: updated Azure service names and a heavier dose of generative AI.

If you started studying with AI-900 materials, don’t panic — most of your prep still counts. Here’s exactly what changed, what stayed the same, and what to do about it.

AI-900 vs AI-901 at a glance

What actually changed

1. The service names caught up with Azure. Microsoft renamed half its AI portfolio over the past couple of years, and AI-901 tests the current names. If your study materials say the old name, you’ll want to re-map them:

• Azure AI services — formerly Cognitive Services
• Azure AI Foundry — formerly Azure AI Studio
• Azure AI Vision — formerly Computer Vision
• Azure AI Language — formerly Text Analytics / LUIS
• Azure AI Document Intelligence — formerly Form Recognizer

Expect the exam to test whether you know the service by its current name and its job. A question about “extracting tables from invoices” wants Azure AI Document Intelligence — answering with Form Recognizer thinking is how outdated materials cost you points.

2. Generative AI got heavier. Generative AI workloads are now the single heaviest domain at 20–25% of the exam. You’ll need to be comfortable with large language models, tokens, prompts and completions, embeddings, the Transformer architecture, Azure OpenAI Service (GPT models, embeddings, DALL-E), and Azure AI Foundry’s model catalog.

3. The other domains were refreshed, not rewritten. The five skill areas are the same shape as before: AI workloads and responsible AI, machine learning fundamentals, computer vision, natural language processing, and generative AI — each 15–20%, with generative AI at 20–25%.

What stayed the same

• $99, delivered through Pearson VUE (online proctored or test center)
• Roughly 40–60 questions in 45–60 minutes — single answer, multi-select, drag-and-drop, dropdowns
• 700 out of 1000 to pass
• No expiration — Microsoft Fundamentals certifications never need renewal
• No prerequisites and no coding — it’s still built for technical and non-technical people alike

“I already passed AI-900 — is my cert dead?”

No. Microsoft Fundamentals certifications don’t expire, so a passed AI-900 stays on your transcript and remains a legitimate credential. You don’t need to retake anything. The retirement only means new candidates can’t book AI-900 — going forward, everyone earns AI-901.

If you were studying for AI-900

Your effort isn’t wasted — the core concepts (regression vs classification, responsible AI principles, which service does what) carry straight over. But do two things before you book:

1. Re-learn the current service names. The rename map above is the single highest-value 20 minutes of your prep.
2. Go deeper on generative AI. It’s the heaviest domain now. Know tokens, embeddings, prompts/completions, and what Azure OpenAI Service and AI Foundry each do.

And be picky about materials: anything written before 2026 was written for AI-900. It’s not useless, but it will teach you retired names and underweight the generative AI content. Our free AI-901 study guide and cheat sheet is current, and the free practice questions are written against the AI-901 blueprint.

Keep reading: Not sure Azure is even your lane? See AWS AI Practitioner vs Azure AI Fundamentals: which should you take first? — or compare all eleven options in Which AI Certification Should You Get?

HOW TO // AI is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Azure AI Fundamentals, AI-900, and AI-901 are certifications and trademarks of Microsoft Corporation; we reference them descriptively.