Originally published on AI Tech Connect.
What you need to know 2026 retired two of the three flagship AI exams. AWS's ML Specialty went on 31 March 2026; Microsoft's AI-102 followed on 30 June 2026. Their successors — AWS ML Engineer – Associate and Azure AI-103 — are the credentials that now matter. Certificates are tiebreakers, not door-openers. Hiring managers in both markets describe screening on portfolio evidence first, credentials second. A heavy cert list with no shipped work is a known red flag. India weighs credentials more formally than the UK — services firms and cloud partners count them for billing and partner tiers. UK screening leans on portfolio and interviews. The winning pattern is a pairing: one cloud cert matched to your target employers' stack, plus three shipped projects that prove you can use it. The…
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