AWS expands its AI certifications and retires Machine Learning – Specialty
AWS announced the retirement of the Machine Learning – Specialty exam and a new Generative AI Developer – Professional certification covering RAG, foundation models, and vector databases.
By MyCertPath Editorial
The short version
- ✓AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty is being retired
- ✓New: Generative AI Developer – Professional (RAG, foundation models, vector DBs)
- ✓AI Practitioner remains the entry point into the AWS AI track
- ✓Security – Specialty (SCS-C03) adds AI/ML security coverage
AWS is reshaping its AI and machine-learning certification portfolio. The long-standing AWS Certified Machine Learning – Specialty exam is being retired, and AWS has opened beta registration for a new AWS Certified Generative AI Developer – Professional certification.
The new professional-level exam validates the ability to build production-ready AI solutions using foundation models, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) architectures, and vector databases — skills that did not exist when the original ML – Specialty blueprint was written.
The Generative AI Developer – Professional joins a now-broad AI lineup that includes the entry-level AWS Certified AI Practitioner, the Machine Learning Engineer – Associate, and the Data Engineer – Associate.
AWS also updated its Security – Specialty exam (SCS-C03) to add dedicated coverage of generative-AI and machine-learning security.