Skills to excel in the AI era
Practical guidance on which AI skills matter for your career and how to build them the right way, with honest certification guides and study resources built from real-world experience.
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Certification guides
Every guide follows the same format: a quick verdict, our ratings, what the exam tests, and who should and shouldn’t take it. Pick a vendor to see all its guides, or compare every certification in one table.
Anthropic · 4 guides
Claude certifications
Partner Network access only; US$99–175 per attempt.
AWS · 5 guides
AWS AI certifications
Open to anyone; US$100–300 per attempt.
Microsoft · 9 guides
Microsoft AI certifications
Open to anyone; US$99–165 per attempt in the US (prices vary by country).
Google Cloud · 3 guides
Google Cloud AI certifications
Open to anyone; US$99–200 per attempt.
GitHub · 1 guide
GitHub Copilot certification
Open to anyone; fee varies by country.
NVIDIA · 3 guides
NVIDIA AI certifications
Open to anyone; US$125–200 per attempt.
Not sure where to begin?
Good places to start
Four exams that are open to anyone and a sensible first step for most readers.
AWS · Beginner
AWS Certified AI Practitioner
For anyone starting out with AI on AWS. Open to anyone; US$100.
Google Cloud · Beginner
Generative AI Leader
For managers and non-technical roles. Open to anyone; US$99.
Microsoft · Intermediate
Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer (AI-103)
For developers building AI apps and agents. Open to anyone; US$165 in the US.
NVIDIA · Beginner
Generative AI LLMs Associate (NCA-GENL)
For developers and data people new to LLMs. Open to anyone; US$125.
Exams change often: see what’s changing and when →
From the blog
Latest articles
- Google Cloud AI certifications: all three comparedGoogle Cloud has three AI certifications for very different people. Which one fits you: Generative AI Leader, Professional ML Engineer or Agentic Architect.
- What changed in AI certifications: November 2026Anthropic updates three Claude exams on 7 December, AWS retires MLA-C01 on 14 January, plus Microsoft, Google, ISC2, IAPP and SAP changes.
- Claude and Google have AI certifications. So where is OpenAI’s?Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, AWS and NVIDIA all certify people in AI. OpenAI’s story is foggier: free courses with certificates are live, its real certification is invite-only, and no public exam exists yet. What’s real, and what to take instead.
- Agentic architecture: what the certification tests vs. what production actually demandsPassing CCAR-F or CCAR-P proves solid design judgment on paper. Here is exactly where that stops and where production — evaluation, cost, failure handling, human oversight and audit — begins.
- Claude vs AWS: Which AI Certification Actually Fits Your Role?Nine AI certifications, two very different approaches. A role-by-role breakdown of Claude vs AWS certifications, what drives the difficulty, and which one actually fits the work in front of you.
- What to expect on the CCA-F exam (and why most candidates run short on time)What the CCA-F exam is actually like: scenario format, pacing, the domain people underestimate, and how to prepare. The AI Skill Atlas verdict, with no exam content.
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Prep kits
Preparing for a Claude certification?
Study guides and original practice tests, built from real-world experience. The CCA-F/CCAR-F kit is available now, with free samples; kits for the other Claude exams are on the way.