Feedback about MS-102 retirement

I agree that AB-650 should remain a separate exam. Just for the sake of AI, there's no need to change all the existing certifications. You can update some of the objectives and add AI-related content where it makes sense.

When a legacy certification exam is retired and replaced by a new version, Microsoft should automatically issue a free certification voucher to all candidates who previously passed the original exam. This ensures existing certified professionals can easily update their credentials without a financial penalty.

Tinezones has always been the problem hasn't it, us leads and mcts excluded in stuff for years and years, its only my baraging for more timezone friendly meetings we get included. This was a meeting held in one timezone and is non friendly was excluded let alone the poor wording and communication. As my fellow mcts here in Australia say, some of which have 20 25 30 plus years on them, which respect what im trying to do here atm thinks certain personal need to stop drinking the coolade and start championing for the learners.

I did my best today to catch Microsoft's attention about this topic by forwarding this internally. Lets see what happens after October.

There is also another site about this as well :)

Keep up the good work!

Microsoft Credentials roundup: June 2026 | Microsoft Community Hub

I wanted to leave the following feedback, as someone who works in Microsoft 365

I am very disappointed with the way Microsoft has chosen to go forward with their certification roadmap. 

As someone who works in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem daily, I've lost the opportunity to pursue PL-600, MS-203, MS-300/301, and now upcoming MS-102, these are just a handful of certifications that would absolutely have been meaningful and exciting for me to obtain

I have no way to validate any of my skills in a lot of areas in Microsoft 365.

I want to step back and discuss the retirement of MS-102 in light of an associate level AI certification.

The communication about the retirement of MS-102 has been extremely poor. I'm writing this Mid-July, and the certification page still has a retirement date set to: None.

Essentially, that leads me to believe a lot of people are being misled because they aren't even aware of the tech community blogpost from last month indicating the impending retirement of this exam

Here's the other problem:

People are now forced to sit down and take retiring exams because the replacements are an extremely poor substitute. It's completely unfair. 

The logical decision could have been integrating more AI into these existing exams instead of retiring them and replacing them with exams that don't even correlate. Or maybe putting them as prerequisites. I looked at the curriculum for PL-400 vs AB-100 and it's not at all architecting solutions in power platform

In summary: Abandoning services like Exchange Online, Teams, Power Platform, and SharePoint Online as a start in favor of agentic AI is an extremely poor decision

I highly doubt all of this will get reversed. But we should have Exchange Online certs, sharepoint online certs, teams certs, power platform certs, more certs of what we as Microsoft 365 Engineers and Admins use every single day, because the industry still demands all of this.

This company needs to stop acting like the only important thing is Copilot and AI, and listen to what your customers are indicating. There's a lot that can be done better here. Maybe gather live feedback and engage with us instead of just putting on blindfolds in this manner

Thanks

unfortunately, this discussion is not going to make any difference because we see the focus towards the (ai slop), they are driving 200km/h to AI everything

From another TC feed, but has to be said: 

I need to add something here because this isn’t just about people like me who have been doing this for decades. I genuinely feel for every single learner who is studying for MS 102 right now or planning to take it soon. Moving everyone over to AB 650, which is full of Copilot and AI content (slop), is not a realistic replacement for a proper expert level Microsoft 365 exam.

I literally work as a Microsoft 365 engineer in my company every darn day, and I have been MCSA and MCSE across three generations. Many of us in this community have lived through every certification cycle Microsoft has ever released and their acronym changes. And now we are watching Microsoft walk away from the serious old school foundational workloads, the ones that built Microsoft enterprise based in the first place, and instead push AI associate exams that do not cover the same responsibilities, I know because I test copilot, i can do this as fast or more efficient day in day out.

Microsoft is even giving voluntary redundancy packages right now to long serving staff as they move away from core foundational applications. Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, these are not legacy technologies and they need to stop being treated like that. They are still everywhere, still critical, and still require deep engineering expertise.

I also teach these exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive workloads part time because Microsoft created the gap and the demand is STILL for trainers to fill it. That alone shows how far Microsoft Learning has drifted well away from REALWORLD role based certification.

And I really feel for the learners right now. The product teams jamming Copilot and AI into every competency exam for validation are not just giving up on the past, they are giving up on future learners too. You are forcing people to rethink their entire learning path because Microsoft is abandoning the workloads that actually define the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

This is not expanding your portfolio. This is removing the key portfolios entirely and replacing it with AI hype. Learners, engineers, admins and trainers are left without a credible role based path for their future, and that is the core issue many of us are calling out.

It's a weird move from Microsoft, indeed.

feels like a downgrade is coming soon, not sure if it's worth doing AB-650 as well