Amazon to Shut Down Crowdsourcing Labeling Platform Mechanical Turk by End of September

August 26, according to CNBC, Amazon announced it will shut down its crowdsourcing work platform AWS Mechanical Turk (MTurk) on September 30, 2026, after about 21 years of operation. Launched in 2005, the platform distributed low-barrier digital tasks such as data labeling, audio/video transcription, and surveys to remote workers, serving over 500,000 "Turkers."

The report noted that with the rise of AI model capabilities and the emergence of specialized data service providers such as Scale AI, Mercor, and Prolific, MTurk has been shrinking in recent years; a 2023 study also showed that up to 46% of MTurk workers had used AI models to complete tasks. The platform's closure may push companies in sectors like insurance and travel that still rely on it for data processing to accelerate the search for alternative services, and could impact remote gig workers who depend on the platform as their primary source of income.

[TechFlow]