Amazon will stop accepting new customers for Mechanical Turk

Amazon says Mechanical Turk will stop accepting new customers on July 30, 2026, though existing customers can continue using the service. Launched in 2005, the platform became known for low-paid human microtasks, data labeling for AI, and controversies around crowdsourced labor and data quality.

The move signals that Mechanical Turk is shifting into maintenance mode as AI data-labeling markets and automation practices evolve. Its decline also reflects a broader tension in AI: systems once dependent on human labor are increasingly being trained or evaluated through workflows that may themselves be shaped by AI-generated output.