Amazon pushes in-house AI coding tool Kiro over competitors', memo shows

By Greg Bensinger

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -Amazon suggested its engineers eschew AI code generation tools from third-party companies in favor of its own, a move to bolster its proprietary Kiro service, which it released in July, according to an internal memo viewed by Reuters.

In the memo, posted to Amazon's internal news site, the company said, "While we continue to support existing tools in use today, we do not plan to support additional third party, AI development tools."

"As part of our builder community, you all play a critical role shaping these products and we use your feedback to aggressively improve them," according to the memo.

The guidance would seem to preclude Amazon employees from using other popular software coding tools like OpenAI's Codex, Anthropic's Claude Code, and those from startup Cursor.

That is despite Amazon having invested about $8 billion into Anthropic and reaching a seven-year $38 billion deal with OpenAI to sell it cloud-computing services. Amazon has been fighting a reputation that it is trailing competitors in development of AI tools as rivals like OpenAI and Google speed ahead.

Kiro is Amazon's homegrown AI tool for code generation, the technique for creating websites and apps using just plain English commands. It relies in large part on versions of coding tools from Anthropic, but not specifically Claude Code.

"To make these experiences truly exceptional, we need your help," according to the memo, which was signed by Peter DeSantis, senior vice president of AWS utility computing, and Dave Treadwell, senior vice president of eCommerce Foundation. "We're making Kiro our recommended AI-native development tool for Amazon."

The internal guidance comes on the heels of Amazon widening Kiro's availability last week to a worldwide audience along with some new features.

Spokespeople for Anthropic, OpenAI and Cursor did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the memo.

Codex, Cursor and Claude Code have become popular ways for engineers to quickly spin up new services. Cursor, for instance, was valued at nearly $30 billion after completing a funding round earlier this month.

In October, Amazon revised its internal guidance for OpenAI's Codex to "Do Not Use" following a roughly six month assessment, according to a memo reviewed by Reuters. And Claude Code was briefly designated as "Do Not Use," before that was reversed following a reporter inquiry at the time.

(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Stephen Coates)

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