AWS SHUTTING DOWN MECHANICAL TURK IN 2026

AWS announced the shutdown Tuesday following an internal assessment of the service. Mechanical Turk, launched in 2005, allowed companies to outsource small jobs—from data labeling to content moderation—to a distributed workforce of independent contractors. The platform became a foundational tool for AI training and academic research, enabling researchers to gather labeled datasets at scale. It also served as a primary income source for thousands of remote workers globally. AWS provided a 20-month notice period for the closure, giving users time to transition work and accounts elsewhere. The company did not disclose specific reasons for the shutdown beyond citing the assessment results. The discontinuation marks the end of an era in crowdsourced labor, though similar platforms like Upwork and Fiverr continue operating in the gig economy space.