Amazon to shut down Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform by September 2026

Mechanical Turk Closure Announced

Amazon has decided to shut down its Mechanical Turk (MTurk) crowdsourcing platform, with the service ceasing operations on September 30, 2026. This decision follows a regular evaluation of Amazon's programs, tools, and services.

Platform's History and Purpose

Launched in 2005, Mechanical Turk connected a large workforce with digital tasks, known as "Human Intelligence Tasks," that were difficult for computers but simple for humans. These tasks included data labeling, audio transcription, and survey completion. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos referred to it as "artificial artificial intelligence," and it was initially conceived to help label data for Amazon's webstore.

Decline and Market Changes

Despite once serving over 500,000 workers, MTurk has been in decline in recent years. Rapid advancements in AI models and the emergence of new data labeling startups like Scale AI, Mercor, and Prolific have intensified competition. These new platforms recruit workers specifically for training AI models, a service Amazon also marketed MTurk for through its SageMaker service.

Impact on Workers and Data Quality

According to Krista Pawloski of Turkopticon, an employee advocacy group, Amazon's reduced investment in MTurk, coupled with the rise of competing services, led many workers to migrate to other platforms. Concerns have also been raised regarding the quality of data generated on MTurk; a 2023 study indicated that up to 46% of its workers used AI models to complete tasks.