Amazon Web Services (AWS) is debuting two new certifications focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The first, The AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate, is aimed at those with “at least one year of experience building, deploying, and maintaining AI & ML solutions who want to demonstrate their knowledge and experience,” according to Amazon. The covered skills include building, training, and refining AI models.
The second certification, AWS Certified AI Practitioner, is intended for a non-technical audience; it covers the basics of AI, ML, and generative AI. “Organizations recognize that taking advantage of AI and generative AI will require a broader skill set beyond programming,” is how Amazon explains the thinking behind this certification. “This includes professionals in marketing, sales, project and product management, HR, finance, accounting, and beyond. By earning this certification, non-IT professionals can feel greater confidence when identifying opportunities that are well-suited to AI, or when collaborating with technical teams.”
Amazon is issuing eight free courses associated with AWS Certified AI Practitioner, including:
- Fundamentals of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
- Exploring Artificial Intelligence Use Cases and Application
- Essentials of Prompt Engineering
For those relatively unfamiliar with AI and ML, these courses cover real-world use cases for the technology, including how to craft effective prompts. AWS Certified Machine Learning Engineer – Associate will also have three free courses.
AWS already offers foundational, associate, professional, and specialty certifications that cover everything from DevOps and cybersecurity to machine learning. If your tech career touches AWS in some way, earning a certification can help convey your knowledge to current and future employers. “People don't need to necessarily pick a full track right at the very beginning,” Mattias Andersson, senior community training architect at Pluralsight, told Dice about AWS certifications last year. “They can start with Cloud Practitioner, or if they feel more ambitious, the Solutions Architect associate and then move forward from there. It's a super-valuable start, and they're not wasting any effort by doing that.”
As AI finds its way into pretty much every part of the technology stack, knowing how to build models and write effective prompts becomes more important than ever. Even if you’re not in the market for a certification, you can use classes like the ones presented by AWS to figure out how to best integrate AI into your current workflows.
