Thinking about taking the AB-731 AI Transformation Leader exam? I just completed the beta exam at Microsoft Ignite, and here are my honest first impressions — what was easy, what wasn’t expected, and what you should definitely review before scheduling your own exam.
If you’re a leader, manager, or anyone responsible for AI transformation in your organization, this exam is absolutely worth preparing for — but you’ll want to go in with the right expectations.
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Video Summary
- Free and Discounted Exams at Ignite. At Microsoft Ignite, you can take one certification exam for free, and if you want more, you’ll get up to 80% off using special codes for exams like AB-900, AB-730, and AB-731.
- Swag and Conference Perks. Completing an exam comes with perks—Microsoft Learn swag like tumblers and even Copilot Studio sunglasses because conference swag is part of the fun!
- AB-731 Exam Focus. The AB-731 exam is designed for AI Transformation Leaders and covers more than Microsoft 365 Copilot. It includes Azure AI services like Vision, Search, and Foundry. You need to know what each service does and when to use it—not how to configure them.
- Study Tips and Access to Microsoft Learn. Unlike AB-730, this exam lets you access Microsoft Learn during the test, which helps a lot. Still, prep matters—review the study guide, understand Microsoft’s Responsible AI principles, adoption strategies, licensing models, and common barriers to AI adoption.
- Exam Details and Strategy. Expect 40–60 questions in 45–60 minutes. Questions are straightforward, but use a smart approach: answer what you know first, mark the rest for review, and then use Microsoft Learn for tricky ones. Searching inside Learn isn’t perfect, so try different keywords.
For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!
Transcript
Hello everyone, Vlad here for a final video about the certifications at Microsoft Ignite. Today, I took exam number AB-731, AI Transformation Leader. Because we’re at Microsoft Ignite again, for those of you who didn’t watch the past two videos, it’s really cool—you can take at least one free exam. If you want, you can actually take more, but you can only take one of them for free; the rest you have to pay for. If you’re interested in taking any of the AB-900, AB-730, or AB-731 exams, you can get up to 80% off by using one of the codes I shared in my previous video. I’ll make sure to link it below.
Before we start talking about the certification, I want to show you something first. At Ignite, after you take an exam, you get some cool Microsoft Learn swag. I hope it doesn’t reflect too much here—I’ll try to show it nicely. I got this nice Microsoft Learn tumbler, which is kind of cool. So, a big shout-out for that. And because it’s Microsoft Ignite, we all know that swag is an important part of the conference experience. I also got some really cool Copilot Studio sunglasses. They’re really big—I’m not sure I can do a full session wearing them—but this is still the coolest swag I got today.
With all of that out of the way, let’s start talking about the exam. I have my laptop here, so if you see me looking down, it’s because I want to have the study guide near me as I go over it. For those of you who watched my video yesterday about the AB-730—and for those who didn’t—basically, I said that I didn’t study at all, and it kind of bit me in the back. So, for this one, I spent about an hour and a half before the exam reviewing some of the things I thought would be most important as I went into the exam. This way, I didn’t make the same mistakes, and for that reason, I found it easier.
Now, there’s another lesson learned here, and I don’t want to say I feel bad, but in the AB-731 exam, I had access to Microsoft Learn. For the past two years, Microsoft has given access to Microsoft Learn during associate-level, expert-level, and specialty-level exams—but not for fundamental-level exams. When I did the AB-730, I had no idea if I had access to Microsoft Learn or not. Maybe some of you can tell me—if you took the AB-730, did you have access to Microsoft Learn or not? But for AB-731, I actually had the option to open Microsoft Learn and review some of the things I wasn’t too sure about. That also made the exam a lot easier.
I have to say that I’m really happy I went through some of the Microsoft Learn material before taking the exam. Why I’m happy is that I feel like a lot of the stuff might not be aimed at me. Maybe I’m not necessarily the target audience for this exam because I’m not a CEO or a workplace manager at a big company. I would say this is really aimed at high-level leaders—not only team managers. A lot of the things covered in Learn aren’t things I would necessarily think about when doing an AI project. For example, as you go into Microsoft Learn, they talk about some of the roles you need to implement when you do an AI project. You should have a Chief Ethics Officer. They talk about having a council or advisory board to discuss AI ethics and things like that. Those are the kinds of things covered in the exam, and I’m really happy I studied them before going in.
I do feel like the level for this exam is perfect. I think most leaders will still have to study. The reason I say that is because this exam doesn’t only cover Microsoft 365 Copilot—it also covers a lot of Azure. Looking at the study guide, you’ll see things like identifying capabilities of Azure AI services, including Azure AI Vision, Azure AI Search, and Azure AI Foundry. You need to know what all the different services in Azure do to help you with AI, and you need to know, for a certain business case, which Microsoft tool is best. Is it M365 Copilot Chat? Is it creating an agent in Copilot Studio? Is it creating an agent in Copilot Chat? Or is it going to Azure? And then in Azure, should you use something in Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Vision, or Azure AI Search? You need a high-level understanding of all the different generative AI tools Microsoft offers—both in M365 (including Copilot Studio) and Azure AI. You don’t need to know how to configure them, but you do need to know when to use each one. This is all in the study guide, and I feel like the study guide really matched the exam this time—unlike AB-730, where I found it didn’t necessarily match. Maybe I just got unlucky with the questions I got, which can happen.
Also, remember that about 25% of the exam is about aligning an AI strategy with Microsoft’s Responsible AI policies. Make sure you understand what Microsoft’s Responsible AI practices are, because what you consider ethical and responsible AI in your organization isn’t necessarily what Microsoft says. At the end of the day, it’s a Microsoft exam, so you need to use Microsoft’s terms. You also need to know how to establish an adoption team, what some common barriers to adoption are, how to set up an AI Champions program, and, of course, understand license types. You need to know the different license types—not only for Microsoft 365 Copilot (like Copilot licenses or credits) but also for Azure AI services. What are the different ways to license Azure AI services, and which one is better depending on the scenario?
If you’re an admin or a maker inside the organization, you might have access to those tools and be able to do demos or labs in Azure AI Foundry, Azure AI Vision, and Azure AI Search. But if you’re a transformation leader—as Microsoft defines the role—you don’t have access to Foundry or Azure AI services. So, it’s tough to go and play with them. Unfortunately, if you’re in the role this exam is for, you should check out Microsoft Learn. Honestly, for this one, try to do some of the Learn assessments. Use AI to quiz you or summarize the different services and when to use each one. Or talk to some of your architects—maybe your company has already used some of those services, and they can give you concrete examples from projects you were aware of. They can explain when they used what. Of course, as a leader, you don’t always have access to creating and deploying models in Azure AI Foundry, so it can be more difficult to study.
That’s it for this quick video. I forgot to mention the number of questions and time—it’s similar to the other two exams we talked about: 40 to 60 questions, 45 to 60 minutes to complete. So, about one minute per question. Don’t worry—they’re super straightforward questions. You either know them or you don’t. Because you have access to Microsoft Learn during the exam, I recommend doing a first pass: answer everything you know, mark the rest for review, and then use Microsoft Learn to verify the tricky ones. The search in Microsoft Learn during the exam isn’t the best, so you might need to try a few different ways to search for what you want. Overall, I think this is a great exam. It matches the role properly. It’s a bit technical for AI Transformation Leaders, but I think that’s what Microsoft wants—leaders who understand the solutions better and feel more confident with them. That will lead to higher success in AI projects using Microsoft technologies.
Again, that’s it for this video. If you missed them, make sure you watch my videos on AB-900 and AB-730—I’ll put them on the screen now. You can still save 80% if you sign up for the beta. I’ll put a link to another video in the description below. Thank you so much for watching, and I’ll see you in the next ones.
