A Realistic Roadmap to Start an AI Career in 2026

A project-driven roadmap for starting an AI career in 2026 is presented, focusing on building real, usable projects rather than just watching videos. The path is structured in four phases, starting with advanced machine learning on a realistic problem using tools like Scikit-learn and SHAP. Subsequent phases cover MLOps for deploying models with MLflow and FastAPI, and building a modern Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) application with LLMs and vector databases. The final phase involves a capstone project to integrate all learned skills into a coherent, small-scale AI application.