Amazon announced it will close AWS Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026, ending a service Jeff Bezos once called "artificial artificial intelligence" when he launched it in 2005. The crowdsourcing marketplace let businesses pay humans a few cents per task to complete work — data labeling, transcription, surveys and content moderation — that automated systems could not yet handle reliably.
The platform once had more than 500,000 workers, but demand collapsed as generative AI models advanced and newer platforms such as Scale AI, Mercor and Prolific pulled workers and clients toward higher-skilled AI-training work. A 2023 Swiss study found roughly 46% of Mechanical Turk workers were already using AI to complete their assigned tasks, undercutting the platform's original premise. Amazon stopped accepting new customers last month and said the closure follows "an assessment" of the service.
For long-time workers like Krista Pawloski, who has used the platform since 2008, the shutdown leaves little time to find replacement income before the deadline. "They're concerned now," she said of workers scrambling to line up alternatives.