AWS says it plans to shut down Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026, following an assessment; the service, launched in 2005, outsourced tasks to humans (Annie Palmer/CNBC)

Amazon is ceasing Mechanical Turk, an online marketplace established in 2005 that connected businesses with workers to complete small online tasks, after 21 years of operation. The service, which often paid workers just a few cents per task, was officially shut down on September 30, 2026, following an internal review. Amazon had previously ceased accepting new customers on July 30.

The platform, initially known as "artificial artificial intelligence," relied on human labor to perform simple digital tasks, such as image labeling, audio transcription, and data sorting. Over time, MTurk became integral to the development of machine learning, as Amazon utilized the platform to collect and annotate large datasets, provide human feedback to validate models, and retrain AI systems.

At its peak, the marketplace reportedly employed more than 500,000 workers. However, the platform's relevance has waned as automation has increased and newer companies have emerged to source human labor specifically for training advanced AI models. Krista Pawloski, a former MTurk worker and advocate for the platform, noted that MTurk had been declining for years, with some workers turning to large language models to complete tasks.

While Amazon has not explicitly linked the shutdown to advancements in AI, the company's decision appears to be related to its evaluation of services. Despite the shutdown, AWS still offers SageMaker Ground Truth, an in-house data-labeling tool, as a viable alternative for customers who previously relied on MTurk. Some existing MTurk requesters, including insurance and travel companies, have continued using the platform until the shutdown notice.