9 Must-Have AI Certifications for Boosting Your Career

The emergence and advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in recent years has ushered in fundamental business transformations in industries around the world. The AI field is a cutting-edge technology which has firmly seated itself at the centre of the world's most advanced technologies including self-driving cars, AI chatbots, and much more!

As the importance of AI in the modern workplace increases, so too does the Importance of staying up to date with the latest AI skills and knowledge. While many turn to traditional routes of education, this is often quite expensive and out of the realm of consideration for many due to limited time or other personal and professional obligations. The solution? Online AI certifications!

Online AI certifications are offered by a wide range of reputable organizations and institutions and cover an extensive array of topics within the field. From elective courses introducing the fundamentals in Linux command line operation to the most advanced tutorials on machine learning algorithms, these online AI certifications are a gateway to valuable resources for students and professionals alike!

In this article, you will get an in-depth review of many of the gold-standard AI certifications that aspiring software developers, students, professionals, and even business leaders can take today! We will cover everything you need to know about each certification, including the cost, duration, target audience, and all other relevant features. If you are seeking to keep ahead of the curve and position a future-proof career, this article could be right for you!

In today's rapidly evolving landscape of technology, AI stands out as one of the most transformative and impactful fields. As AI integrates into more industries, the demand for skilled professionals proficient in AI technologies is skyrocketing. To this end, a deep and diverse knowledge of AI operations and functions can greatly benefit the modern career path; AI certifications offer a self-paced and affordable option to gain this crucial knowledge! This section will cover several of the most significant benefits that the best AI certifications can offer. 

Boosting Professional Credibility

The importance of AI certifications is reflected in the prevalence of AI technologies and the popularity of the computer sciences as a desired field of study across many industries. AI certifications not only attest to an individual's proficiency and understanding of AI concepts, algorithms, and tools, but certifications from reputable institutions or organizations show employers an individual's knowledge and skills. This can boost a professional's credibility significantly and may play a decisive factor in the applicant consideration process.

Boosting Job Prospects

Acquiring competitive AI certifications also enhances job prospects for professionals in the field. As businesses across diverse sectors increasingly adopt AI technologies into their operational workflows, the demand for qualified AI specialists has never been greater. Candidates for open positions who have certifications attesting to their AI skillset are more attractive and committed to continued learning to potential employers. 

Facilitating Career Transitions

Possessing AI certifications can help significantly in helping experienced professionals in other fields transition into AI-related roles to adapt to changing workplace requirements or to advance their careers. By gaining useful insight into foundational and advanced AI skills, professionals from all careers can take on new challenges and adapt to the evolving demands of the job market.

Increasing Earning Potential

AI certifications can lead to better salary prospects for professionals. Due to the demand for experienced AI-versed professionals, employers often place attractive premiums on certified AI specialists due to their demonstrated expertise, which can translate into higher earning potential later on. 

Bridging the Skills Gap

Finally, AI certifications can help bridge the skills gap between the rapid advancements in AI technologies and a professional's existing skill set. As AI continues to rapidly evolve, there is a pressing need to contemporize the skill set and AI knowledge of the modern workforce to keep pace with these advancements. 

The Certified Artificial Intelligence Professional Certification offers an introduction and examination of several core and popular areas in AI and data science, including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and TensorFlow. The course covers two main certifications: AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, and AWS Certified Machine Learning, and requires foundational knowledge of mathematics and statistics. Priced at $5,112, this course is intended for those interested in exploring the fundamental beginnings of AI concepts; students, recent graduates, and professionals seeking a potential career change are encouraged to take this course. 

This AI certification course teaches the skills needed to open many doorways for candidates who complete it. Some future career opportunities include work as a machine learning engineer, AI developer/analyst, and machine and deep learning researcher, to name a few. These are competitive and demanding fields, so including this AI certification on your resume may make all the difference needed to land that dream job.

This AI specialization certification offers self-paced instructional modules that guide participants through the foundational knowledge and practical techniques of artificial neural networks, natural language processing, deep learning frameworks, machine learning, and much more. The course is broken up into 5 modules, each covering a distinct area in the utilization and application of AI. 

This course is recommended for those who have already entered the software engineering space, or for technical professionals who already possess in-depth knowledge and technical proficiency in at least one programming language and seek further specialization in the AI field. It is recommended that entry-level professionals possess at least a bachelor’s degree in computer sciences, data analysis, or a similar field. This course can be enrolled in through Coursera, which costs $49 a month. 

This valuable AI course offered by LinkedIn Learning is an excellent investigation into the field of AI algorithms and allows participants to gain an understanding of how AI affects their daily lives. Throughout the 10 hours of course content, participants learn about the foundations of AI and machine learning, Linux command line workflows, deep learning, computer vision applications, reinforcement learning foundations, and neural networks. This is a foundational AI certification, which means that it is intended for those with little to no existing skills or knowledge in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This makes this AI certification widely accessible to the majority of the population. This course is covered under the LinkedIn Learning subscription, which is billed monthly at $19.99.

This is a self-paced, 17 instructional-hour course that examines computer vision and machine learning through TensorFlow, which is an open-source library for artificial intelligence and machine learning. This course is structured in four modules beginning with a cursory introduction to computer vision and ending in an examination of the ways that computer vision can be enhanced using convolutional neural networks and real-world scenarios and images. 

This is a course designed for intermediate and advanced learners with an existing computer science skill set who wish to gain exposure to the application of neural networks in practical settings. This course is part of the larger DeepLearning.AI TensorFlow Developer Professional Certificate; candidates interested in the TensorFlow course are recommended to check out the other offerings that are part of the professional certificate.

This course is designed to teach participants how to create and leverage AI in practical applications and real-life situations. This course costs around $50 and includes over 15 hours of instructional videos, 19 academic articles, and much more guided resources. This course only requires basic knowledge of Python and high-school-level math, which makes this modern artificial intelligence course highly accessible to most people. 

Throughout the course, you will learn about building different AI models and train them to complete several real-life problems in the medical, entertainment, and engineering fields. Through the required courses of this certification, candidates will gain critical problem-solving skills and get a good understanding of many core concepts in the AI field that can be applied in multiple industries and can definitely be included in a resume.

The Machine Learning course by Stanford University empowers candidates over 8 intensive weeks with a deep understanding of essential concepts in machine learning methods algorithms and data analysis. This course requires at least a bachelor's degree of good standing, knowledge of a programming language such as Python, knowledge of linear algebra, and the ability to complete a question set provided by the university to test for programming and technical problem-solving skills. 

The course costs $5,824 to participate in and requires around 20 hours of commitment per week. Those who complete this professional certification can include it on their resume when applying for positions as a data scientist, software developer, cloud computing (like the Google Cloud) technician, and other positions within the IT field and beyond! While this course comes at a high price, the pedigree and standard of the graduate certification carry a lot of weight on a resume and provide the highest level of assurance in your professional AI programming skills and qualifications. 

This professional AI certification looks at the implementation of machine learning algorithms and how data scientists use big data and supervised and unsupervised learning to train AI models to accomplish their given tasks. This course is relatively beginner-friendly, as prior experience in machine learning is not required. At the same time, Cornell University recommends applicants to the program to have knowledge of basic probability distributions and probability theory, linear algebra, statistics, and familiarity with the Python programming language. Throughout this course, participants will have the chance to design and implement AI models on live data and will be exposed to identifying and troubleshooting issues using ensemble methods and support vector machines. 

This course costs $3,70 and will take around 3 to 4 months to complete, with around 9 hours of commitment per week. The flexible course schedule also included live sessions with professors and guidance throughout the material. Software engineers, data scientists, programmers, and others in the IT field are encouraged to apply for this prestigious professional certification course.

The Machine Learning: Fundamentals and Algorithms AI professional certification course teaches an in-depth understanding of AI and learning algorithms and data structures. This 10-week course requires around 6 hours per week of committed work and contains 10 modules that cover topics including an introduction to algorithms, greedy algorithms, linear programming, dynamic programming, hashing and streaming, and NP-Completeness, to name a few. 

The course is specifically designed for those in the STEM field or who have a STEM background, graduates who wish to get hands-on experience in practical exercises developed from real-life scenarios, and software engineers seeking further specialization in the AI field. For those interested in a career in the software development and machine learning fields, this course could be a great option for you.

This AI certification offered by MIT is designed for business leaders who wish to understand the application of AI in technical team settings, and how its various representations can be utilized to optimize business functions and other operations. This course costs $3,500 and spans the course of 6 weeks. Each week requires a commitment of at least 6 hours. At the same time, the course is designed for working professionals, so the self-paced nature of the course accommodates busy schedules and allows participants to structure their lesson times around their existing jobs. The course also has fixed start dates, so plan ahead and be aware of the time your session begins upon signup. 

Throughout the course, participants will learn how to integrate AI into a business’ operations. This can have many significant benefits on the career prospects of completers of the course. Not only is this AI certification a great addition to one’s certification portfolio, but the knowledge and perspectives gained throughout the course can be applied towards vertical or lateral career progression, and even across industries! Those in the business field are the target audience for this course as the content focuses most heavily on how AI can be adapted to business needs. 

The strategic implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) models has brought around a digital transformation in the business strategies and operational workflows of industries across the board. AI offers businesses the opportunity to streamline and optimize data-driven decisions, complete menial computational tasks, and assist in the development of new cutting-edge technologies and services in virtually every sector. The adoption of AI at such an unprecedented rate has brought about the need for qualified and experienced AI engineers to lead and manage the development and operation of AI models. 

Taking an AI certification can provide the knowledge and essential skill set needed to position yourself at the forefront of this movement towards AI services and secure a great position in almost any industry. The AI certifications we discussed in this article could be the first big step in breaking into the AI market and capitalizing on its ever-increasing demand. These certifications can be included in your resume and make you stand far above the competition! 

We hope you found this article informative. If you would like to take more control over your professional life, consider checking out Cake today! Check out our library and other resume and portfolio-building services today to find out more!

— Originally Written by Alex Coye —