AWS is shutting down Mechanical Turk, which let humans beat AI at certain work tasks

Amazon announced it will permanently shut down Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026, the platform that connected workers to small, routine tasks previously completed by machines. Launched in 2005, Mechanical Turk allowed companies to outsource jobs like image tagging, transcription, and surveys to human workers, known as turkers.

At its peak, the platform connected over 500,000 turkers who earned a few cents per task. However, with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, Amazon appears to be phasing out the human workforce as newer competitors like Scale AI and Prolific emerged to offer similar services. Some insurance and travel companies still rely on Mechanical Turk and are now searching for alternative solutions.

Despite the platform's closure, Amazon claims to remain committed to its Amazon and AWS customers. The shutdown highlights the shifting AI economics and the diminishing role of human workers in certain tasks.