How to switch to Ai job from a Mechanical job?

I will tell you my story in brief, I did my grad in animation, wasn't working for me, I did a course and got my first job as a Data analyst at a startup, pretty good pay. Later I was laid off due to financial crisis, since then I tried so hard to get another job in Ai as data science, Ai intern etc you competing with candidates who have Btech,BE,MS,MBA. Thr very first thing they'll look my education and get rid of me. That's how thr market is. Now I am in my final year of analytics, a related field finally. And I can see the differnce, my resumes do get shortlisted and get calls. I am not saying you can't do much without a relevant degree, but thr competition you have now is enormous.