Microsoft retires core Power Apps certifications for new AI builder credentials
Microsoft is retiring its primary Power Platform certifications, including the PL-200, PL-500, and PL-600 exams, between June and August 2026. Existing certifications will remain valid until their standard expiration dates, but the associated training paths will disappear. In their place, Microsoft is launching the AB-410 Intelligent Applications Builder Associate credential in June 2026. The entry-level PL-900 exam is also receiving a significant refresh to align with this new direction. The new testing criteria shift away from traditional manual app building and model-driven architecture. Instead, exams will evaluate a builder's ability to use Copilot, design with natural language, and embed AI agents into business solutions.
Previously, proving your worth as a Power Platform builder meant memorizing the deep technical mechanics of Dataverse, application lifecycle management, and model-driven architecture. It was a developer's exam masquerading as a citizen builder's credential, leaving business users who just wanted to build functional canvas apps on SharePoint out in the cold. Now, Microsoft is officially conceding that the future of low-code is prompt-driven. By replacing technical syntax exams with AI-agent credentials, they are signaling that manual control positioning and writing complex Power Fx from scratch are legacy skills. The new baseline for building internal tools is directing an AI to generate the app, rather than dragging and dropping the pieces yourself.
Analysis
Ignore the panic about retiring certifications and do not rush to take the PL-200 before it dies. Microsoft is admitting that manual canvas app building is too tedious, but until Copilot can actually build a complex app without hallucinating, you still need fundamental skills. Stop trying to memorize every function and instead focus entirely on learning how to read and debug Power Fx; when the AI inevitably generates a broken gallery filter, your value will be knowing how to fix the code it wrote.
Citation
This executive briefing was curated and analyzed by Collab365. To reference this analysis, please attribute: "This briefing is available on Collab365 Spaces (spaces.collab365.com)".