Straight to the point.
Why study for the AIF-C01 exam?
This exam covers the AWS cloud, AWS services, and AWS artificial intelligence (AI) services, with growing emphasis on AWS security services.
For aspiring and current data engineers or generative AI (genAI) developers, preparing for this exam will introduce AWS and its AI capabilities. The main benefits are foundational knowledge of AWS and AI services. It is NOT recommended for learning implementation or hands-on experience.
What is the structure of the AIF-C01 exam?
As of June 2026, the AWS Certified AI Practitioner exam consists of 65 questions and lasts 90 minutes, costing $100. There are four question types: multiple-choice, multiple-response, ordering, and matching. Note that none of the questions offer partial credit. Out of the 65 questions, 50 of them actually affect your score. AWS collects information on the remaining 15 questions for future exam use. Naturally, AWS does not disclose which questions are scored.
Even so, the test is scaled to 100–1000 points, with a minimum passing score of 700. The exam is weighted by content domains:
- Fundamentals of AI and ML → 20%
- Fundamentals of GenAI → 24%
- Applications of Foundation Models → 28%
- Guidelines for Responsible AI → 14%
- Security, Compliance, and Governance for AI Solutions → 14%
You’ll receive a score report after the exam describing your performance at each level.
More information can be found on the AWS Certified AI Practitioner (AIF-C01) webpage.
With that out of the way, let’s discuss…
How do you study for the AIF-C01 exam?
Per my colleague’s advice, I took Stéphane Maarek’s Udemy Exam Prep Course. Stéphane is a solutions architect, software developer, and a many-times best-selling instructor on Udemy. Before committing to the course, I recommend listening to the course previews to get a better sense of it.
When you start the Udemy course, it is critical, and I cannot stress this enough, that you start a monthly Udemy subscription. As of June 2026, Maarek’s Ultimate AWS Certified AI Practitioner — AIF-C01 exam prep and practice exams cost a combined $95, compared to a $35/month Udemy subscription. Realistically, you can prepare for this exam in one month, but even if it took two months, you’d still save money (plus access to other courses and practice exams, like this one). Just be sure to schedule a reminder to cancel your subscription.
Regardless, this course was my primary study tool. While watching the course videos, I wrote notes, highlighted key terms, and drew visuals. I recognize that there are different study methods, but one thing is clear: you must actively complete the course; simply watching the videos isn’t enough. Whatever method has worked for you in the past will help, whether it’s flashcards or vocal paraphrasing.
Another important aspect of the Udemy prep course is its structure, as it outlines key exam objectives. For example, the course dedicates two hours to AWS Security Systems and two hours to Amazon Bedrock, compared to 25 minutes for prompt engineering and 40 minutes to introduce AWS and cloud compute. Studying Bedrock and AWS Security will give you “more bang for your buck” compared to other topics. Still, each course video is intentional; there is no fluff, so skipping videos is out of the question.
Not to mention, a big part of the AIF-C01 exam is terms. Mechanical Turk, Macie, Nova Pro, FM, RAG… there are so many acronyms and terms, and understanding them at a basic level can help choose the correct answer. Thankfully, many of the terms’ names hint at their meaning, for example:
Amazon Translate, Amazon Transcribe, Amazon Rekognition… pretty straightforward, right? Even more complex terminology, such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) or reinforcement learning through human feedback (RLHF), can become straightforward with review. Remember, this is a foundational exam; understanding these terms at a high level (broad) should be enough for the exam.
What other resources help with studying for the Certified AWS AI Practitioner exam?
Practice exams! They will help you understand the four types of questions, how you do under “pressure” (90 minutes is more than enough time for 65 questions, but still), and important patterns. What do I mean by patterns? Read this Claude-generated question below and try to answer it:
If you chose Amazon Bedrock, congrats! That’s correct. If you didn’t, totally fine. The point isn’t the answers; it’s the question. It’s long-winded, introducing a business scenario and problem. The actual question is in the last two sentences (The company wants… Which AWS service…). Reread the question by starting at the second-to-last sentence and see if there’s enough context to provide an answer; you’ll find that there is. This question pattern is very prevalent in the exam (as of June 2026).
The practice exams on Udemy also give you a score report similar to the one you’ll receive after taking the official Certified AWS AI Practitioner exam. The biggest similarity is the scores and score distributions by domains. For example:
That alone is enough to point out your weaknesses, but the Udemy practice exams also allow you to review your correct and incorrect answers and, depending on the course instructor, explanations for each right or wrong choice. Heads up: some of the explanations are AI-generated, so review them with a grain of salt.
When should you take the Certified AWS AI Practitioner exam?
As soon as you complete your exam prep and practice exams; otherwise, you may forget vital information come exam day.
When should you schedule the Certified AWS AI Practitioner exam?
I’ve heard advice to schedule the exam on the first day of exam prep. While there is some merit to that (sunk cost fallacy), I felt better scheduling the exam about halfway through the course because I had a clearer sense of when I would complete it. Either way, you can refund or reschedule the AIF-C01 exam anytime if you do so more than 24 hours in advance of the exam. Whenever you feel confident in your preparation trajectory, go ahead and schedule the exam.
What should I do now? (action-list)
- Review Stéphane Maarek’s Udemy prep course for the Certified AWS AI Practitioner exam.
- Create a study plan for the next three days to cover a quarter (~2.5 hours) of the course, which will help you gauge the course load and core AWS concepts.
- Subscribe to a monthly Udemy personal plan.
- Stick to the above plan for the next three days. At the end, reflect and structure a study plan for the rest of the course, making sure to account for practice exams too.
- Happy learning!