Microsoft just launched five brand-new Microsoft 365 Copilot credentials — including three certifications (AB-900, AB-730, AB-731) and two applied skills — and one of the beta exams even comes with an 80% discount.

In this video, I break down each credential, what they cover, and who they’re meant for so you can plan your 2025 and 2026 certification path confidently.

What We’ll Cover
AB-900: Copilot & agent admin fundamentals for IT Pros
AB-730: AI Business Professional for business users
AB-731: AI Transformation Leader for managers & decision makers
APL-6501: Generate reports using AI Research Agents
APL-6500: Streamline workflows using Copilot Chat

Whether you’re an IT admin, business user, or leader, there’s finally a Copilot credential designed for your role.

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Video SummaryBig news from Microsoft Learn! Right before Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft dropped three brand-new certifications and two applied skills focused on Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI. For the first time, these credentials include those for business users and leaders, not just technical personnel.The new certifications include:
• AB-900 – Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals
• AB-730 – AI Business Professional
• AB-731 – AI Transformation Leader
Each costs about $99, and they’re in beta with an opportunity to save 80% using special discount codes.Two free applied skills for hands-on practice:
• Generate reports with AI research agents (APL-6501)
• Streamline business workflows with AI chat (APL-6500)
These are self-paced, free, and unproctored—perfect for building confidence before the certifications.What’s inside the exams? Expect topics like Microsoft 365 core services, Copilot administration, data protection and governance, prompt engineering, responsible AI, and even Azure AI services for leaders. Business-focused exams emphasize practical AI use cases—drafting documents, managing prompts, and driving transformation.Act fast for discounts and beta perks! Use codes AB900GOALS26, AB730SMORE25, and AB731MARKERS25 for 80% off while seats last (limited to the first 300 per exam). The sooner these exams are taken, the faster they’ll move out of beta.

For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!

Transcript

Microsoft 365 Copilot certifications are finally here! Right before Microsoft Ignite, Microsoft Learn went big with not one, not two, but three new Microsoft certifications. You’ll notice a brand-new badge design because, for the first time ever, we have certifications for business users and business leaders. Up until today, Microsoft has only offered technical certifications. Now, we have our first business user certifications with this new design, which looks pretty cool, to be honest. Alongside these, there are two brand-new free Microsoft Applied Skills focused on M365 Copilot. In this video, we’ll cover the five new credentials—three certifications and two applied skills—and even share a way to get 80% off those certifications, but you’ll have to act fast.

At a high level, the first new certification is Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals. The second is AI Transformation Leader, and the third is AI Business Professional. Next, we have our first applied skill: Generate Reports with AI Research Agents, and finally, Streamline Business Workflows with AI Chat. We’ll dive into each one, and if you’re only interested in a specific credential, you can use the chapters in the video to navigate directly to it.

Let’s start with the Microsoft 365 Certified Copilot and Agent Administration Fundamentals exam, code AB900. For those following the channel, you’ve seen this exam code before because we had a hint it was coming, and I did a video on it. Originally, it was called “AI Workplace Fundamentals”—quite a name change from what we heard before. This exam costs $99 USD or less, depending on your country. In Canada, it’s a bit cheaper, but the highest price is $99. The audience for this exam is primarily administrators, as the name suggests, but I believe pre-sales professionals could also take it. I think this exam can appeal to a broader audience than just admins. I’m actually taking it on Monday, the first day of Ignite, so stay tuned for my reaction video right after.

According to Microsoft, as a candidate for this certification, you should be familiar with Microsoft 365, including core services, security, identity and access, data protection, and governance, along with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents. You should also know the admin centers used to manage Microsoft 365 workloads such as Exchange Online, SharePoint in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Entra, and Microsoft Purview. Experience with AI-driven productivity tools and modern IT management practices is required. You must be able to identify roles, core features, and objects in Microsoft 365—such as users, groups, teams, sites, and libraries—and understand core security features like authentication methods, conditional access policies, and single sign-on.

The exam measures three main skill areas:

Identify core features and objects of Microsoft 365 services (30–35%)Understand data protection and governance tasks for Microsoft 365 and Copilot (35–40%)Perform basic administrative tasks for Copilot and agents (25–30%)

The first section includes licensing, organization configurations via the M365 admin center, and identifying objects to configure in Exchange Online, SharePoint, and Teams admin centers. It also covers Microsoft 365 security principles like Zero Trust, authentication, authorization, threat protection, and Microsoft Defender XDR. You’ll need to understand Entra features such as conditional access policies, MFA, and Privileged Identity Management. There’s overlap with the SC-900 exam, but that’s expected since security is critical.

The second section dives into data protection and governance tasks for M365 and Copilot, including Microsoft Purview Information Protection, DLP, Insider Risk Management, Communication Compliance, DSPM for AI, and Data Lifecycle Management. It also covers sensitivity labels, data classification, retention policies, and Copilot-specific topics like how Copilot accesses data, how Microsoft Graph influences responses, permissions, and Responsible AI principles. You’ll also need to identify sensitive information using Purview Data Explorer and troubleshoot oversharing in SharePoint with advanced management tools.

The third section focuses on Copilot and agent administration tasks: comparing built-in capabilities of Copilot and agents, understanding licensing models (monthly vs. pay-as-you-go), enabling or disabling Copilot features, and identifying use cases for researcher and analyst agents. You’ll also need to know how to assign Copilot licenses, manage billing policies, monitor usage and adoption with Copilot Analytics, manage prompts (saving, sharing, scheduling, deleting), configure user access to agents, create agents, set approval processes, and monitor agents.

Next is the AI Business Professional certification, exam code AB730, priced at $99 or less. The audience includes administrators and business users. Candidates should have experience using generative AI-powered productivity tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot as a researcher and an analyst. You’ll use AI to improve daily work, drive business outcomes, and make informed decisions without coding or building AI apps. A basic understanding of Microsoft 365 and familiarity with apps like Outlook, Word, Teams, PowerPoint, and Excel is expected, along with knowledge of common business processes such as drafting emails, creating presentations, generating images, and managing documents.

Skills measured include:

Understand generative AI fundamentals (25–30%)Manage prompts and conversations using AI (35–40%)Draft and analyze business content using AI (25–30%)

You’ll need to understand Copilot’s privacy and security, context and its effect on responses, differences between chat and agent experiences, use cases for creating agents, and Copilot features across M365 apps. Responsible AI practices, risks like fabrications and prompt injections, and verification steps such as citation checks and human review are also covered. For prompts, you’ll learn how to create effective prompts, reference resources, save, schedule, share, delete, and rename chats, add conversations to notebooks, and decide when to use the agent store versus creating a new agent. You’ll also create agents using templates, configure settings, and share agents with team members. Finally, you’ll draft business documents and communications, generate documents from prompts or existing files, create management summaries, move data between apps, use Copilot for meetings, collaborate with Copilot Pages, and understand memory and instructions.

The third certification is AI Transformation Leader, exam code AB731, also $99 or less. This one targets business leaders responsible for guiding transformation and innovation. Candidates should understand how to recognize AI opportunities, identify tools and resources, plan adoption, optimize processes, and drive innovation using M365 Copilot and Azure AI services. You’re expected to demonstrate AI fluency, strategic vision, and leadership in AI adoption without coding. Familiarity with Microsoft 365, Azure AI services, and general AI capabilities is required, along with experience in change management.

Skills measured include:

Identify the business value of generative AI solutions (35–40%)Identify benefits, capabilities, and opportunities for Microsoft AI apps and services (35–40%)Identify an implementation and adoption strategy for Microsoft AI apps and services (20–25%)

Topics include foundational concepts of generative AI, differences between GenAI and other AI types, selecting solutions for business needs, differences between fine-tuned and pre-trained models, cost drivers like tokens and ROI, challenges such as fabrications and bias, and identifying business value scenarios. You’ll also cover prompt engineering, grounding solutions, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), secure AI, and machine learning value. Copilot-specific topics include mapping business processes to Copilot, understanding differences between versions, capabilities across apps and platforms, Copilot Studio, and Microsoft Graph. Azure AI services like Vision, Search, and Foundry are included, along with responsible AI principles, governance, AI councils, adoption teams, champions programs, barriers to adoption, and licensing types.

Finally, Microsoft released two free applied skills:

Generate Reports with AI Research Agents (APL6501)Streamline Business Workflows with AI Chat (APL6500)

These are hands-on, self-paced, and unproctored, available anytime at no cost. The first focuses on creating business reports using the researcher agent—defining scope, identifying resources, drafting, refining, and finalizing reports. The second focuses on streamlining workflows using Copilot Chat—web productivity tasks, drafting documents in Word, creating presentations in PowerPoint, managing emails in Outlook, and exploring data in Excel.

Microsoft also offers 80% off beta exams for the first 300 people per exam using these codes:

AB900GOALS26 for AB900AB730SMORE25 for AB730AB731MARKERS25 for AB731

Act fast to take advantage of these discounts and help move the exams out of beta sooner.