Amazon to Shut Down Mechanical Turk in September 2026

Amazon has announced that its Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform will permanently close on September 30, 2026. [1] The service connected developers and businesses with a distributed human workforce to complete small digital tasks, a model Amazon referred to as Artificial Artificial Intelligence. [1] The closure also applies to Amazon Augmented AI and SageMaker Ground Truth. [1]

Following the September 30 deadline for task submissions, requesters will have until October 30, 2026, to approve or reject completed work and issue worker bonuses. [1] Pre-paid requester balances will be fully refunded within 30 days, while transaction histories will remain accessible until January 28, 2027. [1]

The shutdown of Mechanical Turk marks the end of a pioneering platform in the crowdsourced data labeling market. [1] By closing not just the standalone marketplace but also human-in-the-loop enterprise services like SageMaker Ground Truth and Amazon Augmented AI, Amazon is removing its primary infrastructure for human-led microtasks. [1] This shift forces developers relying on the service for data annotation and algorithmic reinforcement to find alternative labor marketplaces before the late 2026 cutoff. [1] What the sources don't address: Whether Amazon plans to replace these human-in-the-loop enterprise services with automated, AI-driven data labeling tools.