Amazon sends message to engineers on in-house coding tool Kiro; says: We do not plan to…

Amazon has reportedly sent a memo to its software engineers to start adopting Kiro, its proprietary development system, in a strategic push to close the gap with rivals OpenAI and Google. According to a report by news agency 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. The report quotes an internal memo viewed by Reuters. The directive affects popular competing products including OpenAI's Codex, Anthropic's Claude Code, and Cursor—despite Amazon's billions in investments with these same companies.The directive, posted to Amazon's internal news site and signed by senior AWS and e-commerce executives Peter DeSantis and Dave Treadwell, makes clear the company's position: "While we continue to support existing tools in use today, we do not plan to support additional third party, AI development tools." An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the memo's authenticity to Reuters.According to the report, the guidance effectively discourages Amazon employees from using popular competing products such as OpenAI's Codex, Anthropic's Claude Code, and Cursor—despite Amazon having invested roughly $8 billion in Anthropic and securing a multi-year, $38 billion cloud deal with OpenAI.The move comes as Amazon works to counter perceptions that it trails rivals like OpenAI and Alphabet's Google in the race to develop cutting-edge AI tools. Reuters reported the company had previously designated OpenAI's Codex as "Do Not Use" in October following a six-month internal assessment. Claude Code was also briefly given the same restriction before that designation was reversed after a reporter inquiry.The memo frames employee adoption as critical to Kiro's success. "As part of our builder community, you all play a critical role shaping these products and we use your feedback to aggressively improve them," the executives wrote, according to Reuters. "To make these experiences truly exceptional, we need your help."Amazon launched Kiro in preview mode in July and expanded it to general availability last week. More than 250,000 developers have used the tool in its first three months, handling over 300 million requests. The AI code assistant market is exploding—Market.us projects it will grow from $5.5 billion in 2024 to $47.3 billion by 2034.Kiro distinguishes itself through a spec-driven development approach that generates formal specifications, design documents, and task lists alongside code—addressing the maintainability problems that plague AI-generated prototypes. Spokespeople for Anthropic, OpenAI, and Cursor did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.