Amazon Decides to Shut Down 21-Year-Old Mechanical Turk Platform
The MTurk platform, established by Jeff Bezos during the artificial intelligence era and involving simple tasks like data labeling, is shutting down in September 2026.
Amazon has announced that it will shut down the Mechanical Turk platform, which has been in service for 21 years and was described by its founder Jeff Bezos as artificial artificial intelligence, as of September 30, 2026.
Closure Decision and Date
In a statement made by Amazon, it was stated that as a result of evaluations, it was decided to terminate the AWS Mechanical Turk service on September 30, 2026. An informational note regarding this decision was also shared on the platform's official website.
History and Operation of the Platform
Launched in 2005, Mechanical Turk, or MTurk for short, matched workers with simple digital tasks such as data labeling, audio or video transcription, or answering surveys. These tasks were typically performed with payments of a few cents.
Jeff Bezos's Definition
Company founder Jeff Bezos described the outsourcing of these jobs, which are difficult for computers but easily completed by humans, as an artificial process and defined the service as artificial artificial intelligence.
Decline Process and Competition
The platform, which once hosted more than 500,000 workers, experienced a decline in recent years with rapid developments in artificial intelligence models and the entry of new data startups like Scale AI, Mercor, and Prolific into the market.
Situation of the Workers
The closure of the platform caused concern among workers who made their living this way and advocacy groups like Turkopticon, because many people were dependent on the platform for full-time or supplemental income.