Sharing, verifying, and renewing your certificate
Who this is for
Use this article once you have already earned a CloudAIPilot certification and want to download it, share it publicly, or keep it valid past its expiry date.
Prerequisites
- You have earned a certification. See Get Certified: how the program works if you have not yet.
Steps
- Open the certificate card from the Account menu. It shows your current status, issue date, and expiry date.
- To download it, choose PNG or PDF. Each download is generated fresh at the moment you click it, there is nothing to wait on, and nothing is pre-saved anywhere on your account.
- To share it publicly, turn on the visibility toggle. This does three things at once: a public verification page becomes reachable at a unique link so anyone you send it to can confirm it is real without needing an account, a QR code appears in the corner of the certificate image pointing at that same verification link, and the certificate becomes eligible for job alerts (see step 5).
- To keep it private, turn the visibility toggle back off. The public page stops resolving immediately, and the certificate image shows a plain brand mark in the corner instead of a QR code. Job alerts are also turned off automatically the moment you go private, the two settings can never be out of sync with each other.
- To opt into job alerts, turn on the job-alerts toggle. This is only available while your certificate is public, if you try to turn it on while private, you will be asked to make the certificate public first.
- To renew before expiry, use the renew action on the certificate card. Renewal does not just re-stamp the same certificate, it re-checks whether you currently still meet the full requirements (all 4 Foundation items, at least 3 of 4 Proficiency items) against your account right now. If you still qualify, your expiry date moves one year forward from the renewal date and your renewal count goes up by one.
What success looks like
- A downloaded PNG or PDF that matches exactly what is shown in your Account menu.
- If public: a working verification link and a scannable QR code on the certificate image, and a live public page anyone can open showing your name, active/expired status, and issue and renewal history.
- If private: the certificate is visible only to you, and the public link is not reachable by anyone, including someone who previously had it.
- After a successful renewal: an expiry date exactly one year ahead of the renewal date, and the certificate stays in active status.
Common errors and fixes
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Renew does not extend the expiry date | You no longer meet the full requirements, something that used to be true (for example, a connected cloud account) is no longer true today | Open the certification checklist to see exactly which items are currently unmet, fix those, then renew again |
| Job-alerts toggle will not turn on | Your certificate is still set to private | Turn on public visibility first, then turn on job alerts |
| QR code disappeared from the certificate image | Visibility was switched to private, which replaces the QR code with a brand mark by design | Switch visibility back to public if you want the QR code back |
| Someone says your verification link does not work | The certificate is private, was never made public, or has since been switched back to private | Turning visibility on again restores the same link immediately, the link itself does not change when you toggle visibility |
| Certificate shows "Expired" | The one-year validity window has passed and it has not been renewed since | Use the renew action; if requirements are still met it becomes active again with a new one-year expiry |
Safety notes
The public verification page never reveals anything beyond your display name, certification status, and dates, no email address, no organization details, and no list of the specific infrastructure you connected. A certificate link that points at an invalid, private, or removed certificate shows a generic "not found" page rather than any information about whether that credential ever existed, so a stranger cannot use a guessed or old link to learn anything about your account.
Related articles
Validation metadata
- Last validated: 16 August 2026
- Source reviewed: live certification download, visibility, job-alerts, and renewal routes as shipped.