AI-103 study plan: pass in 4 weeks

This plan assumes you already write Python and have basic Azure experience, and that you can study about 8–10 hours a week. Short on experience? Stretch each week to two.

Week 1: plan and manage an Azure AI solution

• Set up a Microsoft Foundry project and deploy a model.
• Secure it with managed identity and restrict network access.
• Turn on monitoring and look at token usage, latency and traces.
• Learn how to choose between models and deployment types based on cost and requirements.

Week 2: generative AI and agents

• Build an agent with at least two tools, such as a search tool and a custom function.
• Add RAG: index your own documents and ground the agent’s answers in them.
• Run an evaluation on relevance, groundedness and safety.
• Add content filters and see what they block.

Week 3: vision, text and information extraction

• Analyse images and add image understanding to an agent.
• Build a text pipeline: language detection, entities, sentiment, translation.
• Extract fields from PDFs and forms into structured output.

Week 4: practice and fix gaps

• Take a full practice exam under real conditions: 120 minutes, no notes.
• Review every wrong answer and note the domain it belongs to.
• Revisit the weakest domain, then take a second practice exam.
• Book the exam once you consistently score above 80%.

Tip: the first two domains are worth more than half of the score. If time runs short, cut from week 3, not from weeks 1 and 2.