Amazon Mandates Sign-Off on AI-Assisted Code
Amazon now requires senior sign-off on AI-assisted code after an AI tool caused a 13-hour AWS outage in China, highlighting GenAI deployment risks.
The outage in China involved Kiro, an in-house "agentic" coding tool, which decided to "delete and recreate the environment". Amazon characterized the 13-hour disruption to AWS Cost Explorer as a "user error" due to misconfigured access controls, not an AI flaw. The e-commerce division convened a large engineering meeting on March 10, 2026, after a six-hour shopping site outage on March 5, which impacted checkout, login, and product pricing. SVP Dave Treadwell highlighted "poor site availability" and the need for better safeguards around "novel GenAI usage". Junior and mid-level engineers now require senior sign-off for AI-assisted code deployments. This new policy follows at least two earlier AWS outages linked to the Kiro AI coding tool. Amazon has deployed 21,000 AI agents across its Stores division, aiming for $2 billion in cost savings and a 4.5x increase in developer velocity.
