Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate (AI-102) Practice Tests

Microsoft retired the AI-102 exam and the Azure AI Engineer Associate certification on June 30, 2026, and the official certification page now carries a retirement notice covering both the exam and its renewal assessment. Unlike the months right after retirement, there is now a confirmed successor: exam AI-103 (Developing AI Apps and Agents on Azure), which leads to the Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Apps and Agents Developer Associate certification. AI-103 is live and bookable through Pearson VUE today, so if you searched for AI-102 while planning a new Azure AI certification, AI-103 is the exam to schedule.

AI-103 runs 120 minutes (20 minutes longer than AI-102) and keeps the familiar Microsoft scoring model: 700 on a scale of 100 to 1,000 to pass, with the certification renewing annually through a free online assessment on Microsoft Learn. Its skills outline, dated April 16, 2026, measures five areas: implementing generative AI and agentic solutions is the heaviest at 30 to 35 percent, followed by planning and managing an Azure AI solution at 25 to 30 percent, with computer vision, text analysis, and information extraction solutions at 10 to 15 percent each. Two shifts matter most if you studied AI-102 material: AI-103 centers on Microsoft Foundry (projects, agent building, RAG pipelines, multi-agent orchestration), and its audience profile names Python specifically, where AI-102 accepted Python or C#.

For reference, AI-102 in its final form ran 100 minutes, required a scaled 700 out of 1,000, and covered six skill areas per its December 2025 update, from planning and managing an Azure AI solution (20 to 25 percent) down to implementing an agentic solution (5 to 10 percent). Much of that content carries directly into AI-103: Azure AI service planning, computer vision, natural language processing, and knowledge mining all appear in the new outline under updated names. This bank's 1,392 AI-102-aligned practice questions remain useful for building those underlying Azure AI skills, whether you hold the retired credential and want to stay sharp or are starting AI-103 prep and want question volume on the overlapping domains. Start with the 30 free questions, then check the official AI-103 study guide for the Foundry-specific and agentic topics you will need to add on top.

The Microsoft Certified: Azure AI Engineer Associate certification, validated through exam AI-102 (Designing and Implementing a Microsoft Azure AI Solution), demonstrates expertise in building, managing, and deploying production-grade AI solutions on the Azure platform. The exam covers the full breadth of Azure AI capabilities including Azure AI Services, Azure AI Search, Azure OpenAI in Foundry Models, Azure AI Vision, Azure AI Language, Azure AI Speech, Azure AI Document Intelligence, and Azure Content Understanding. Candidates are assessed on their ability to architect secure, end-to-end AI solutions that span computer vision, natural language processing, knowledge mining, generative AI, and autonomous agentic workflows.

Last updated on December 23, 2025, the exam reflects Microsoft's shift toward the Microsoft Foundry platform and its emphasis on generative AI and agentic solutions. It aligns with the real-world responsibilities of an Azure AI engineer, including requirements definition, development, deployment, integration, performance tuning, and monitoring. The certification also requires demonstrating the ability to apply Responsible AI principles, configure content safety filters, and design governance frameworks—reflecting increasing enterprise demand for trustworthy AI systems.

This certification is designed for software engineers and developers who build AI-integrated applications and want to formalize their expertise on the Azure platform. Ideal candidates work in roles such as AI Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Cloud Developer, Solutions Architect, or Data Engineer with a focus on AI. Candidates should have hands-on development experience using Python or C# and be comfortable consuming REST APIs and SDKs across the Azure AI portfolio.

The certification is most relevant to professionals who collaborate with data scientists, data engineers, IoT specialists, and infrastructure teams to integrate AI capabilities into broader enterprise solutions. It suits those with at least one to two years of experience building cloud-based applications on Azure and some familiarity with AI/ML concepts, though it does not require deep data science or model-training expertise.

There are no mandatory prerequisites to sit for the exam, but Microsoft recommends foundational Azure knowledge equivalent to the AZ-900 (Azure Fundamentals) or AI-900 (Azure AI Fundamentals) certifications before attempting AI-102. Candidates should be proficient in Python or C# and comfortable with REST API consumption and SDK usage in at least one of those languages.

Practical experience is strongly recommended: candidates should have hands-on familiarity with Azure AI Services (including Vision, Language, Speech, and Document Intelligence), Azure AI Search, and Azure OpenAI. Understanding of cloud architecture concepts—such as resource provisioning, identity and access management, containerization, and CI/CD pipelines—will be essential for the planning and management domain. Exposure to prompt engineering, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) patterns, and responsible AI principles is increasingly important given the exam's updated 2025 objectives.

Exam AI-102 is a proctored assessment delivered through Pearson VUE, available in both online proctored and in-person testing center formats. Candidates are given 100 minutes to complete the exam. The question count typically ranges from 40 to 60 items and may include multiple-choice, multiple-select, drag-and-drop, case studies, and interactive lab-style components. Microsoft does not publish a fixed question count, as it varies per exam form.

The passing score is 700 on a scale of 100–1000. Scoring is scaled and not a simple percentage of correct answers. The exam is available in English, Japanese, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Korean, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), and Italian. Candidates who test in a non-English language can request 30 additional minutes. If a candidate fails, they may retake the exam after 24 hours; subsequent retakes require a 14-day waiting period, and no more than five attempts are allowed within a 12-month period. The resulting certification is valid for one year and can be renewed at no cost via an online assessment on Microsoft Learn.

Earning the AI-102 certification positions professionals for high-demand roles including Azure AI Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Cloud AI Developer, AI Solutions Architect, and Cognitive Services Developer. According to ZipRecruiter, the average annual salary for Azure AI Engineers in the United States was approximately $158,110 as of early 2026, with senior roles at top technology companies exceeding $200,000. The certification is particularly valuable as enterprises scale generative AI adoption—engineers who can implement production-ready RAG pipelines, deploy Azure OpenAI solutions, and build agentic workflows are commanding significant salary premiums.

The AI-102 is the primary associate-level AI engineering credential in the Microsoft ecosystem, sitting above AI-900 (Azure AI Fundamentals) and complementing DP-100 (Azure Data Scientist Associate) for teams building end-to-end ML pipelines. Industry surveys indicate that 26% of certified professionals report job promotions and 35% report salary increases following certification. The exam's 2025 update to include agentic AI and Microsoft Foundry aligns the credential with current enterprise priorities, making it more relevant than its predecessors to organizations deploying Azure OpenAI at scale.