AIF-C01 Prerequisites and Experience

The short version

There are no formal prerequisites for AIF-C01. You do not need another certification, a degree, or coding skills. AWS describes the target candidate as someone with up to six months of exposure to AI/ML technologies on AWS who uses these tools but does not necessarily build them. A little cloud background makes the first weeks much easier.

Required and recommended

Required: nothing. You can book the exam without holding any other credential.

Recommended by AWS (exam guide):

  • Familiarity with core AWS services, such as Amazon EC2, Amazon S3, AWS Lambda, Amazon Bedrock, and Amazon SageMaker AI, and what they are used for.
  • Familiarity with the AWS shared responsibility model for security and compliance.
  • Familiarity with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM).
  • Familiarity with AWS service pricing models.

Suggested starting points (AWS certification page): if you are new to IT and AWS, AWS suggests AWS Cloud Practitioner Essentials or AWS Technical Essentials first. If you hold the Cloud Practitioner or an Associate-level certification, AWS says you can skip those and start with the free AI foundational training in the exam prep plans. You can find the plans on the AWS certification page.

What you do not need

AWS lists these as tasks outside the exam, so you do not have to be able to do them:

  • Develop or code ML models or algorithms.
  • Do data engineering or feature engineering.
  • Tune hyperparameters or optimize models.
  • Build and deploy ML pipelines or infrastructure.
  • Carry out mathematical or statistical analysis of models.

You still need to understand what these terms mean, because questions can ask you to recognize them. For example, you should know what a hyperparameter is, but not how to tune one.

Skills self-check

Read each line and answer honestly. A “no” shows you where to begin.

Cloud basics

  • Can you explain what the shared responsibility model says the customer must secure?
  • Do you know what an IAM role is and why it is better than sharing access keys?
  • Can you say in one line what S3, EC2, and Lambda are for?
  • Do you know the difference between paying per use and reserving capacity?

AI and ML basics

  • Can you describe the difference between AI, ML, and deep learning?
  • Can you tell supervised from unsupervised learning, and give an example of each?
  • Do you know what training and inference mean?
  • Can you explain accuracy and why it can mislead when one class is rare?

Generative AI basics

  • Do you know what a prompt, a token, and an embedding are?
  • Can you explain why a model might make up a fact?
  • Have you seen an example of retrieval augmented generation?

Responsible and secure use

  • Can you give two ways a model can be biased?
  • Do you know why you should not paste confidential data into a public AI tool?

If you answered “yes” to most of these, you can start the study plan at week 2 of the 4-week schedule. If you answered “no” to many of the cloud questions, use the 8-week plan and begin with cloud basics. For help turning notes into a routine, see how to study for IT certification exams.

Helpful, not required

  • A free AWS account, so that you can see the Amazon Bedrock console. Check the pricing of anything you switch on.
  • Some comfort reading short English technical text. AWS offers a 30-minute extension for non-native English speakers, which is described on the exam format page.
  • A habit of writing short notes in your own words.

More guides for AIF-C01

Next step

Once you know where you start, read the exam format page to see how the day works. When you are ready for questions, our AIF-C01 practice tests are original practice sets built around the five exam domains.

Try these practice exams