Amazon pushes engineers to use its own AI coding tool, Kiro, over rivals

Seattle, Nov. 25, 2025 — Amazon is urging its engineers to shift away from third-party AI development tools and prioritize its own in-house, code-generation assistant, Kiro, according to an internal memo. The document discourages future use of external coding tools like OpenAI’s Codex, Anthropic’s Claude Code and Cursor, even as some of those remain in limited internal use.

The memo, signed by senior executives from Amazon Web Services and its e-commerce division, underscores that feedback from Amazon’s developer community is “critical” to refining Kiro. With the push, Amazon aims to make Kiro its default “AI-native” development tool, encouraging engineers to help improve it by integrating their day-to-day input.

Kiro — introduced earlier this year — enables developers to build websites and applications using simple English descriptions, translating those into functioning code. Amazon recently expanded its global availability and added new features to the platform, signaling confidence in its strategic importance.

The decision comes despite Amazon’s substantial investments in other AI companies, including a multibillion-dollar cloud services deal with OpenAI and a major stake in Anthropic. The move suggests Amazon is working to boost its autonomy in the fast-evolving AI market, reducing reliance on external providers even as it races to catch up with rivals like Google in AI-powered developer tools.