Amazon Closes Mechanical Turk Service Amid Program Review

Amazon is shutting down its Mechanical Turk service, which has been in operation since 2005. The company cited an assessment of its programs and services as the reason for the closure. Following this evaluation, AWS Mechanical Turk will cease operations on September 30, 2026.

Mechanical Turk matches workers with simple digital jobs, known as 'Human Intelligence Tasks,' that typically pay out a few cents per task. These tasks include labeling data, transcribing audio or video, and answering surveys.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos once described the service as 'artificial artificial intelligence,' noting it was used to farm out tasks too challenging for computers but easily completed by humans.