Amazon to Shut Down Mechanical Turk After 21 Years
Amazon has announced it will shut down its 21-year-old crowdsourcing platform, Mechanical Turk (MTurk), on September 30, 2026. The platform has already stopped new user registrations as of July 30, 2026, as part of a phased closure. The shutdown marks the end of a pioneering era in crowdsourced data labeling, highlighting how generative AI and specialized platforms like Scale AI have disrupted traditional human-annotated data markets. Additionally, the rise of LLMs has compromised the platform's core value, as many workers began outsourcing their tasks to AI. A 2023 study revealed that 33% to 46% of MTurk workers used large language models to complete tasks meant for humans. Requesters have until October 30, 2026, to review and pay for completed tasks, and transaction history will remain accessible until January 28, 2027.
## BACKGROUND
Launched in 2005, Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing marketplace where businesses hire remote workers to perform discrete "Human Intelligence Tasks" (HITs) like image annotation and transcription. These tasks are essential for training machine learning models, but the platform has faced stiff competition from specialized AI data labeling firms and the automation capabilities of modern AI.