Inside look at the new AI and ML AWS Certifications

9/10/24 Editor’s note: Post updated to reflect new exam preparation resource, AWS Escape Room: Exam Prep for AWS Certified AI Practitioner, available now on AWS Skill Builder

By: Satabdi Das, CJ Taylor

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly reshaping how we live, work, and innovate. From creating new images, videos, and text to developing self-driving cars, AI is fundamentally altering our world.

As AI capabilities explode, a burning question arises: are you equipped with the right skills to thrive in this new era? According to an AWS study, 75% of employers who consider AI skills a priority, have difficulty finding qualified candidates. Recognizing this talent gap, AWS has launched two new AWS Certifications (beta versions) and exam prep resources to empower professionals with the knowledge to drive AI adoption responsibly and build cutting-edge machine learning solutions.

Registration is now open for the beta exams of the AWS Certified AI Practitioner and the AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate. Satabdi Das and CJ Taylor are AWS experts who provide technical oversight to the AWS Certification exams. This blog shares guidance from Das and Taylor about these new certifications and how they can help you to future-proof your career.

AWS Certified AI Practitioner: Embrace the AI-driven future

The new AWS Certified AI Practitioner is “ideal for business leaders, sales and marketing professionals, product managers – anyone who wants to understand how to leverage AI responsibly to drive efficiencies, obtain timely and accurate insights, and drive informed decisions within their organization,” explained Das, who worked on the development of this foundational certification.

Earning this certification enables you to unlock opportunities for your organization like generating tailored education content, providing personalized investment advice, developing bespoke advertisement campaigns, and more. Acquiring AI skills can boost your pay and career benefits. Employers are willing to pay 43% more for sales and marketing and 42% more for finance professionals with AI skills (source).

AWS Certified AI Practitioner builds on the foundational cloud knowledge covered by AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner and offers IT and non-IT professionals a means to demonstrate their knowledge about AWS’ AI and machine learning (ML) services and the ethical and effective use of AI.

AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate: Unleash your machine learning prowess

The new AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate, a role-based, technical certification, validates skills in developing, deploying, and operating ML systems on AWS.

“The exam covers topics across the full ML lifecycle – data preparation, model training, workflow orchestration, monitoring, and more,” explained Taylor. “It’s designed for ML engineers and MLOps engineers with at least one year of AI/ML experience operating AI/ML workloads in the cloud.”

This certification can equip you with critical skills that can have a big impact on your business, like serving thousands of users seamlessly, trimming AI project costs, getting faster results, or ramping up model training. Employers are willing to pay premium salaries – up to 47% more – for professionals with AI capabilities (source). Earning the AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate positions you for coveted AI/ML roles like ML engineer and ML Ops engineer.

Comparing AWS Machine Learning Certifications: Associate vs. Specialty

AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate is focused on validating role-based ML engineering skills and knowledge, whereas the AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty certification delves deeper into data engineering, analytics, modeling, and ML implementations and operations. The Specialty certification validates expertise in these functions, and is suitable for candidates who have at least two years of experience running ML workloads on AWS.

Advice to plan your AWS Certification journey

“I often get asked, ‘which certification should I go for?’” remarks Das. “It really depends on your specific background, career aspirations, and the role and goals you’re aiming for. AWS provides guidance via recommended AWS Certification paths toward top cloud job roles that you can use as a reference when deciding on your first or next AWS Certification.”

Once you have selected your certification, utilize the four-step Exam Prep Plans on AWS Skill Builder. Each plan contains resources to help you get to know the exam format and questions, understand the exam topics, prepare effectively, and assess your exam readiness.

Be sure to check back for new exam prep resources for these exams, like the new AWS Escape Room: Exam Prep for AWS Certified AI Practitioner, available now on AWS Skill Builder. In AWS Escape Room, you’ll answer exam-style questions, build solutions in hands-on labs, and solve interactive puzzles to escape virtual rooms within the game environment. You’ll get feedback along the way to help build your knowledge and prepare you to take the certification exam. You can play solo at your own pace, or compete against a friend in event mode for bragging rights on the leader board.

Taylor recommends registering for an exam early in the exam preparation process. “Committing to the exam by scheduling it is really motivating,” he says. “Then you can work backwards from your test date to prioritize your preparation.”

What is a beta exam

We use beta exams to validate performance of exam questions before the questions are used on standard versions of an exam. Beta exams contain more questions, are available for a limited period of time, and are offered at a discount. In all other aspects, they’re just like standard AWS Certification exams. You earn an AWS Certification by passing a beta exam and results are available within five business days of taking a beta exam.

The AI revolution is underway – don’t be left behind. Whether validating your strategic AI vision as a practitioner or proving your technical abilities as an ML Engineer, AWS Certifications provide a clear pathway to thrive in our AI-powered future. Register now for the beta exam of your choice and be among the first to earn AWS Certified AI Practitioner or AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate.