The short version
AB-100 is Microsoft’s expert-level exam for people who design AI and agent solutions on top of Microsoft business applications. It tests architecture decisions, not button clicks: which platform fits, how to secure and govern it, and how to roll it out. This guide uses the study guide that Microsoft lists as “Skills measured as of October 14, 2026”. You also need one qualifying associate certification to earn the credential.
What the exam is
The full name is Exam AB-100: Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect. It is the single required exam for the Microsoft Certified: Agentic AI Business Solutions Architect Expert credential. Microsoft describes the candidate as an accomplished solution architect who designs and delivers AI-driven business solutions that are scalable, secure, and integrated across several Microsoft services.
The audience description is long, but a few themes repeat. Agentic-first design. Multi-agent solutions. Open standards such as Agent2Agent (A2A) and the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Responsible AI. Monitoring agents and reading telemetry. Return-on-investment analysis. In other words, the exam asks what a senior consultant would decide on day one of a project, and what they would regret on day ninety.
Who it is for
Microsoft’s own training course for AB-100 is aimed at solution architects, enterprise architects, senior functional and technical consultants (Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Power Platform, Azure AI), AI and digital transformation leads, and application architects. Note that this is the audience for the course, and Microsoft says the course is not exam preparation. The exam itself assumes you already work on Microsoft business applications and know the products it names: Dynamics 365, Power Platform, Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Foundry, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.
The extra requirement
Passing AB-100 is not enough on its own. Microsoft says you must also earn at least one qualifying associate-level certification. The list on the certification page is long and includes, for example, Power Platform Developer (PL-400), several Dynamics 365 functional and developer certifications, and newer AI-focused associates such as AI-103 and AB-620. The prerequisites page walks through this in detail.
Format at a glance
| Item | What Microsoft says |
|---|---|
| Exam code | AB-100 |
| Level | Expert (credential is an “Expert” certification) |
| Passing score | 700 or higher on a scale of 1 to 1,000 |
| Time and number of questions | Not listed on the AB-100 page; the exam shows both at registration |
| Languages | 13, including English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese (Brazil) |
| Retirement date | None listed |
| Last English update | October 14, 2026 |
Details, including scoring, breaks, and retakes, are on the exam format page.
The three domains and their weightings
Microsoft updates the English exam on November 16, 2026, and the weightings change with it. Microsoft’s pages now show only the new outline, so the earlier column comes from our own check on October 14, 2026.
| Domain | Until November 16, 2026 | From November 16, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Plan AI-powered business solutions | 25-30% | 35-40% |
| Design AI-powered business solutions | 25-30% | 30-35% |
| Deploy AI-powered business solutions | 40-45% | 20-25% |
Plan AI-powered business solutions
Strategy before software. You analyze requirements and grounding data, apply the AI adoption process from the Cloud Adoption Framework for Azure, decide when to build, buy, or extend, and work out costs, benefits, and return on investment. A model router also appears here.
Design AI-powered business solutions
The hands-on architecture domain. It covers Copilot in Dynamics 365 apps, task, autonomous, and prompt-and-response agents, Copilot Studio topics, agent flows, and prompt actions, extensibility with MCP and computer use, custom models in Microsoft Foundry, and the configuration of prebuilt agents in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365.
Deploy AI-powered business solutions
The biggest domain. It covers monitoring and tuning agents, testing, the application lifecycle management (ALM) process for agents, connectors, models, and Dynamics 365 AI, plus responsible AI, security, governance, risk, and compliance. Almost half your score sits here, so do not treat it as an afterthought.
Official source
For the vendor’s own page, see the Microsoft Learn AB-100 exam page. It is the final authority if anything here differs.
More guides for AB-100
- AB-100 Study Plan: 4-Week and 8-Week
- AB-100 Sample Questions With Answers
- Is the AB-100 Exam Hard?
- AB-100 Renewal and Retakes Explained
- Is AB-100 Worth It? An Honest Look
- AB-100 Cheat Sheet: Key Facts to Review
- AB-100 vs AB-620: Which Exam First?
Next step
Read the domains explained page to see where your time should go. When you want to check yourself, our AB-100 practice tests are five original practice sets of 100 questions each, split across these three domains.
Frequently asked questions
Does AB-100 expire?
Microsoft says associate, expert, and specialty certifications expire unless renewed. Renewal is a free, unproctored online assessment on Microsoft Learn, available in a six-month window before expiry.
Is the exam only in English?
No. Microsoft lists 13 languages. Localized versions are updated about eight weeks after the English version, so they can lag behind.
Can I take AB-100 before I hold the associate certification?
The pages we checked do not say. They state that you must earn a qualifying associate certification in addition to passing AB-100. Check the certification page when you plan your order.