AWS says it plans to shut down Mechanical Turk on September 30, 2026, following an assessment; the service, launched in 2005, outsourced tasks to humans (Annie Palmer/CNBC)

AWS announced that Mechanical Turk, its crowdsourcing platform launched in 2005 for human-performed tasks, will be discontinued on September 30 2026 following an internal assessment. The service will cease operations on that date, ending its 21-year run.