Eligibility, exam and work scope
ISACA AAIA registration requirements, checked October 2: Active CISA, or an issuer-listed qualified audit/accounting designation with an IT audit or IT advisory role focus. Confirm the exact designation with ISACA; the alternative list is not interchangeable with any audit badge. This is a qualifying-credential restriction, not a newly verified numeric employment-duration requirement. A course does not supply the prerequisite.
Certification application requirements separately require an exam pass within five years of applying, the application process and ethics agreement. Registering, passing and receiving the credential are distinct steps.
Current official AAIA outline describes a 90-question exam. Exact current appointment duration, seat time, languages and passing-score policy have not been verified here; retained historical logistics are not current booking instructions.
Current issuer exam families; task descriptions below are paraphrased| Family | Weight |
|---|
| AI Governance and Risk | 33% |
|---|
| AI Operations | 46% |
|---|
| AI Auditing Tools and Techniques | 21% |
|---|
Evaluate policy and accountability; inspect data/model lifecycle and operational changes; plan assurance tests, assess evidence quality and communicate findings. Coverage is not a readiness score or proof of performed work. Read the detailed issuer outline rather than treating these families as a complete course syllabus.
Registration eligibility runs six months after registration; pay before scheduling. ISACA lists PSI centers and remote proctoring, with center-only testing in India, mainland China and Hong Kong. That does not verify a particular seat, accessibility arrangement or your account eligibility.
Compare preparation for a named work gap
Free issuer scope and sample quiz
Choose when: Confirm relevance before buying.
Useful evidence: The public outline and 12 free issuer quiz questions help identify concepts to investigate.
Confirm first: These are not a complete free course, actual live exam items, hands-on labs or a pass prediction. A member-only community is not public free access.
Read official preparation choicesStructured issuer self-paced preparation
Choose when: You need a systematic explanation or guided question review.
Useful evidence: ISACA lists an on-demand review course, review manual and Questions, Answers and Explanations subscription. Check the exact AAIA product—not another credential’s bundle.
Confirm first: Tuition, membership cost, taxes, accessibility, access length for your SKU, included feedback and package entitlements are unverified. Question practice is not workplace performance.
Compare issuer products and termsInstructor or employer review of your decision
Choose when: You need feedback on an audit, risk or security-management task.
Useful evidence: Use the original fictional work sample below to specify the evidence, judgment and feedback required. ISACA also lists training workshops.
Confirm first: No current class date, seat, exact instructor, provider authorization or tuition is established here. A badge or similar outline does not prove identical courseware.
Try the no-account work sampleCosts, maintenance and uncertainty before paying
Published issuer exam fees, observed October 2, 2026: USD459 member / USD599 nonmember. A separate USD50 certification application fee applies. Neither amount includes verified tax, retakes, tuition, prerequisite costs or every regional checkout charge. Joining as a member has its own cost; a lower exam tier alone does not establish a saving.
Current AAIA maintenance requirements: 10 AI-related CPE annually and 30 over three years; maintain the active qualifying credential. CPE reporting period is not a three-year expiry or universal renewal purchase. Activity eligibility, evidence retention and your account reporting window must be checked with the issuer. Annual fees are separate from initial exam/application costs.
AAIA’s maintenance page lists USD20 member / USD35 nonmember annually. Its combined-Advanced fee statement conflicts with the separate AAIR page; do not assume that adding AAIR has this same fee. Compare AAIR-specific fees with AAIA’s combined-Advanced statement; no combined fee or three-year ownership total is inferred.
Before purchase confirm active qualifying status, final currency/tax, attempt and retake terms, regional proctoring, accommodations, cancellation, exact training SKU, delivered exercises, access and feedback. Unknown cost is not zero; a published product is not an available class.
Original fictional work sample and review rubric
A fictional retailer claims its supplier’s support assistant cannot disclose customer information. Draft an assurance plan: define the claim, accountable owner, evidence access, test population, sampling limits and reporting threshold. Use invented records only; do not upload customer data.
Changed condition: The supplier offers only a marketing summary, and logs omit one deployment period. Separate insufficient evidence from a demonstrated control failure; revise scope and tell the owner what conclusion cannot yet be supported.
Review rubric: can another reader locate the decision, accountable owner, evidence needed, uncertainty, alternative, escalation threshold and reversible next step? Ask for one objection and revise the record. This original fictional paper exercise is not performed work, an actual exam question or a pass prediction. Difficulty depends on relevant judgment and experience—not an unsupported universal score or five-year rule.
Related responsibilities and salary context
Evaluate policy and accountability; inspect data/model lifecycle and operational changes; plan assurance tests, assess evidence quality and communicate findings. These editorial task connections are not guaranteed job titles, occupational equivalence or employer demand. Compare a real job description with the work you can demonstrate.
No credential-specific salary or exact occupation mapping has been verified. Audit and risk-program responsibilities are not automatically AI engineering, data analysis or security-analyst jobs.
Compare the three directions and choose a private next step
No contact details or exact budget are needed to read, compare or draft a private employer brief.
Prepare an AAIA employer brief Ask about AAIA training
A request permits Learnerside to reply; it does not book training or authorize provider sharing. Sharing requires separate consent naming the intended recipient.