Amazon Pushes Engineers Toward Its Kiro AI Tool Amid Growing Competition

Amazon is urging its engineers to rely on its proprietary AI coding assistant, Kiro, instead of popular third-party code generation tools, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters. The memo, shared on Amazon’s internal news board, highlights a strategic shift as the company works to strengthen its in-house AI capabilities and reduce dependence on external platforms like OpenAI’s Codex, Anthropic’s Claude Code, and tools from the fast-growing startup Cursor.

In the memo, Amazon states that while it will continue supporting tools already in use, it has no plans to approve additional third-party AI development tools going forward. The company emphasizes that employee feedback is essential to improving Kiro, which was globally expanded last week with new features designed to streamline software development using natural language commands.

Kiro, launched in July, is Amazon’s homegrown code-generation system built largely around Anthropic-developed technologies—though not Claude Code itself. Leaders Peter DeSantis, senior vice president of AWS utility computing, and Dave Treadwell, senior vice president of eCommerce Foundation, underscored the importance of employee participation, calling Kiro the recommended AI-native development tool for Amazon teams.

This move comes despite Amazon’s massive investments in external AI companies, including roughly $8 billion into Anthropic and a multibillion-dollar cloud-services agreement with OpenAI. The shift signals Amazon’s determination to shed the perception that it lags behind competitors like OpenAI and Google in AI innovation.

According to Reuters, Amazon previously updated internal guidance for Codex to “Do Not Use” after a six-month evaluation, and Claude Code briefly carried the same label before Amazon reversed the decision following media inquiries. Meanwhile, third-party tools such as Codex, Cursor, and Claude Code continue to gain traction among developers, with Cursor recently hitting a valuation near $30 billion.

An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the memo, while representatives from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Cursor did not immediately comment.