Reports say Amazon restricts employees from using Claude Code and is pushing its own AI programming tool Kiro

K-LinePoet · 2026-03-01T06:18:48+00:00

Amazon internally restricts employees from using third-party AI tools like Claude Code, prioritizing the promotion of their own Kiro programming assistant, which has sparked employee dissatisfaction and controversy. Some employees question whether this policy affects sales and development efficiency and believe that Kiro's performance is insufficient.

K-LinePoet

2026-03-01 06:18:48

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IT Home, February 12 — According to a report by Business Insider yesterday, Amazon is internally prioritizing its self-developed AI programming tool Kiro and restricting employees from using third-party products like Claude Code.

It is reported that Amazon is a major shareholder in Anthropic and also helps this startup AI company bring its AI models and products to the consumer market.

However, within Amazon, employees are not allowed to use Anthropic’s Claude Code for coding or product development in actual production environments without official approval. This conflict became more apparent last fall when Amazon issued internal guidelines advising employees to prioritize using their self-developed AI programming assistant Kiro.

It is known that Kiro, although based on Claude, can work with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and other proprietary tools. This policy caused a stir on internal forums, with many employees criticizing it.

Additionally, some employees responsible for selling third-party AI services do not understand this policy. Their job is to sell products like Claude Code to clients, and some questioned, “If we can’t even use Claude Code in our official work, how can we promote these products to customers? Or how can customers trust a tool that we ourselves are not allowed to use?”

Other engineers discussed whether Amazon’s policy is too extreme. Some believe that Claude Code outperforms Kiro and warned that forcing the use of weaker products could slow down development.

One employee commented, “A tool that can’t keep up with competitors doesn’t bring real innovation, which is why you’re forcing us to use Kiro.”

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