Amazon Is Shutting Down Mechanical Turk, Its 21-Year-Old Human Task Platform

Key points

• Amazon announced on Tuesday that it will shut down Mechanical Turk, its crowdsourced digital labour platform, effective 30 September 2026.
• Mechanical Turk launched in 2005 and at its peak served more than 500,000 workers completing small digital jobs for a few cents each.
• A 2023 study by Swiss academic researchers found that up to 46% of Mechanical Turk workers were using AI tools to complete the tasks they were paid to do by hand.
• Amazon stopped accepting new Mechanical Turk customers last month, which workers took as a warning sign before this week's confirmation.
• Some insurance and travel companies still depend on the platform and are now looking for alternatives before the shutdown date.

Amazon is closing Mechanical Turk, a platform it has run since 2005 that pays people small amounts of money to complete simple digital jobs from a computer or smartphone. The company confirmed the shutdown in a notice on the Mechanical Turk website on Tuesday, saying the service will go dark on 30 September 2026.

What was Mechanical Turk, and who used it?

Think of it as a giant online job board for tiny tasks. A company with a mountain of images to label, audio files to transcribe, or surveys to fill in could post those jobs on the platform. Workers, known as turkers, would pick them up and earn a few cents per completed task.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos called it "artificial artificial intelligence" because it used human hands to do jobs computers could not yet handle reliably. At its peak the platform had more than 500,000 active workers. For some, like Krista Pawloski, it became a primary income source. Pawloski started turking in 2008 while on maternity leave, transitioned to it full time in 2012 to care for her son with special needs, and now organises for Turkopticon, a worker advocacy group for data labourers.

"There's some people that still pretty much still do it full time," Pawloski told CNBC Tech. "They're concerned now."

Why is Amazon pulling the plug?

The platform had been fading for years. AI models have improved sharply since 2005, handling many tasks that once needed human eyes. A new generation of data-labelling companies, including Scale AI, Mercor and Prolific, built businesses specifically around recruiting workers to train those AI models, drawing turkers away from Amazon's ageing platform.

The quality problem cut both ways. A 2023 study found that up to 46% of Mechanical Turk workers were themselves using AI tools to complete tasks, undermining the whole point of hiring human reviewers in the first place.

Pawloski says Amazon appeared to invest less and less in improving the service as competition grew, accelerating its decline.

What does this mean for workers and businesses?

If you earn income on Mechanical Turk, you have until 30 September 2026 to find an alternative platform. Competing services such as Prolific and Scale AI-linked programmes have stepped in to fill part of the gap, though pay rates and working conditions vary.

Businesses are in a tighter spot. Some insurance and travel companies still rely on MTurk for data work and, according to Pawloski, are already scrambling to find replacements before the deadline.

For the broader gig economy, the closure is a reminder that flexible remote work platforms can disappear. Workers who depend on a single platform carry real financial risk.

Common questions

Can workers still sign up or accept new tasks?

Amazon stopped accepting new customers last month. Existing workers can continue until the 30 September 2026 closure date, after which the platform shuts completely.

Are there alternative platforms for data-labelling work?

Yes. Services like Prolific, Appen and platforms connected to Scale AI recruit data workers for similar tasks. Conditions, pay rates and task availability differ, so it is worth comparing options before the shutdown date.