AI-103 vs AI-102: what changed?
AI-103 replaced AI-102 when Microsoft retired AI-102 on June 30, 2026. If you studied for AI-102, a good part of your knowledge still applies, but the focus has shifted.
The main differences
| AI-102 | AI-103 | |
|---|---|---|
| Certification | Azure AI Engineer Associate | Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate |
| Centre of gravity | Individual Azure AI services | Generative AI and agents built with Microsoft Foundry |
| Largest domain | Spread across services | Generative AI and agentic solutions (30–35%) |
| Language | C# or Python | Python |
What this means for your study plan
Spend more time on agents and RAG. You should be comfortable choosing the right tools, memory and knowledge sources for an agent, and grounding answers in your own data.
Learn to run AI in production. Planning and managing a solution carries 25–30% of the score. Expect questions about security (managed identity, private networking), monitoring, evaluation and cost.
Treat the classic services as consolidation. Vision, text analysis and information extraction are still on the exam, each at 10–15%. If you passed AI-102 you mostly need to refresh these and learn how they plug into agents.
Already certified for AI-102?
Your existing certification stays valid until its expiry date, but it can no longer be renewed on the old track. Most AI-102 holders move to AI-103 when their renewal comes up.