Lead: In early 2026, Amazon restricted internal production use of Anthropic’s Claude Code without formal sign-off, while encouraging teams to adopt Kiro, its in-house coding assistant. The guidance, circulated internally late last year and reiterated in early February 2026, has left engineers and sales staff uneasy because some must promote Claude Code to AWS customers through Bedrock despite limits on internal use. The tension highlights a split between Amazon’s investment and commercial partnership with Anthropic and its push to prioritize homegrown AI tooling.
Key Takeaways
- Amazon advises teams to favor Kiro over non-approved third-party coding tools for production work, per internal guidance seen by reporters.
- About 1,500 Amazon employees signed an internal endorsement calling for formal adoption of Claude Code.
- Amazon is a major investor in Anthropic, a stake the article values at more than $60 billion, and Anthropic is a prominent AWS customer.
- Some employees report earlier internal language suggested Claude Code cleared security and legal review; that language was later removed.
- Roughly 70% of Amazon software engineers used Kiro at least once in January 2026, according to an Amazon statement.
- Anthropic has committed to use AWS services and at least one million Trainium chips for its workloads.
Background
Amazon and Anthropic have a complex, interdependent relationship. Amazon is both a large investor in Anthropic and a cloud provider that Anthropic uses for key workloads. That closeness has accelerated product integrations, including Anthropic models being available via AWS Bedrock, Amazon’s managed service for third-party AI models.
At the same time, Amazon has been investing heavily in proprietary developer tools. Kiro, Amazon’s internal coding assistant, was rolled out as a recommended option for production development. The company frames Kiro as a way to speed delivery and standardize tooling across teams, a priority for a company with millions of lines of code and many distributed engineering teams.
The result is a classic partner-versus-product tension: Amazon must promote partner offerings through its cloud marketplace while also cultivating in-house tools that it believes will differentiate its platform and improve internal efficiency.
Main Event
Internal guidance issued late last year and reiterated in early 2026 steers teams toward using Kiro for production code unless a formal exception is granted. That guidance was circulated in internal forums and prompted debate among engineers and sales staff. Critics argue the policy creates an awkward situation for employees who must demonstrate and sell third-party services available on Bedrock.
One recurring complaint among staff is practical: sales and solutions engineers who sell AWS Bedrock and support customer pilots need to be able to use, demo, and build with third-party models like Claude Code. When internal policy discourages or disallows production use, staff say it undercuts their credibility with customers and their ability to troubleshoot or prototype.
Staff also pointed to product-performance comparisons. Some engineers reported that Claude Code outperformed Kiro on certain development tasks, and they warned that mandating a weaker tool would slow overall development speed. Amazon told employees it had seen efficiency gains from Kiro, and that it offers a process to request exceptions for approved third-party tools.
Analysis & Implications
The split between internal policy and external sales creates reputational and operational risks. For sales teams, promoting a partner product that engineers cannot rely on internally raises credibility questions with enterprise buyers who often expect vendor staff to be power users of the tools they sell. That credibility gap can complicate contract negotiations, demos, and proofs of concept.
Strategically, Amazon is balancing two goals that can diverge: driving adoption of its own IP to capture long-term value, and maintaining an open marketplace that attracts customers by offering the best third-party models. Favoring Kiro internally can accelerate unifying engineering practices, but it may reduce the perceived neutrality of AWS as a platform for diverse AI providers.
There are financial and competitive dimensions as well. Amazon’s stake in Anthropic and Anthropic’s commitments to run on AWS (including Trainium chips) create commercial incentives to keep the partnership strong. At the same time, prioritizing Kiro could be seen as an attempt to internalize more value from AI tooling, especially as cloud providers vie to differentiate via developer productivity features.
Comparison & Data
| Metric | Reported Value | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Internal endorsements for Claude Code | ~1,500 employees | Internal forum signatures calling for formal support |
| Amazon engineers who used Kiro (at least once) | ~70% (January 2026) | Company-provided usage figure |
| Anthropic stake value | > $60 billion | Estimated investor stake value reported in coverage |
| Trainium chips committed to Anthropic | ≥ 1,000,000 chips | Commercial commitment to run on AWS infrastructure |
The table summarizes the specific numerical data discussed in internal messages and company statements. These figures illustrate the scale of both employee interest in third-party tools and Amazon’s simultaneous push to expand Kiro usage.
Reactions & Quotes
Customers will ask why they should trust or use a tool that we did not approve for internal use.
Amazon employee (sales engineer, internal forum)
This comment encapsulates the practical worry among staff who must sell Bedrock services. Sales engineers noted that they need to demonstrate and troubleshoot customer use cases to build trust.
We are seeing incredible improvements in efficiency and delivery from Kiro, our customer growth is rapidly accelerating, and we want to make sure our internal employees all take advantage of this capability to deliver faster for our customers.
Amazon spokesperson (company statement)
Amazon framed Kiro as delivering measurable internal benefits and said it supports existing tools while restricting approval of additional third-party development tools for production use.
A tool that can’t keep pace with rivals offers no real innovation.
Amazon engineer (internal forum)
Several engineers warned that forced adoption risks masking product weaknesses and could slow development if Kiro lags behind competing assistants on key tasks.
Unconfirmed
- Whether a formal ban on Claude Code will be implemented company-wide beyond the stated higher requirements for production tooling is not confirmed.
- The precise internal metrics Amazon used to justify preferring Kiro over Claude Code were not published and remain undisclosed.
- Any private negotiations between Amazon and Anthropic about internal tool approvals have not been made public.
Bottom Line
The episode spotlights a recurring dilemma for large cloud providers: how to promote partner ecosystems while also cultivating proprietary features that lock in customers and improve margins. Amazon’s choice to encourage Kiro internally, even as it sells Anthropic models via Bedrock, reflects that tension and creates practical headaches for staff who must be both advocates and users of the platform.
For customers and partners, the situation signals that AWS remains a marketplace but increasingly shapes which tools get operational backing inside the company. How Amazon manages exceptions, transparency around evaluations, and the demonstrated performance gap between Kiro and alternatives will determine whether the policy strengthens internal productivity or erodes trust with engineers and customers.