Amazon's reliance on AI to boost efficiency is facing scrutiny after reports surfaced that its own AI tools caused multiple AWS (Amazon Web Services) outages. This raises serious questions about the readiness of AI for autonomous decision-making in critical infrastructure, and whether the benefits outweigh the risks.
AI-Induced Outages at Amazon Web Services
Amazon's cloud division, AWS, reportedly suffered at least two outages in December 2025 attributed to its own AI tools, according to the Financial Times [1]. The incidents raise concerns about the reliability and autonomy of AI in managing crucial infrastructure. The core question is whether AI is truly ready for prime time in commercial settings.The 13-Hour Disruption
One notable incident involved a 13-hour disruption allegedly triggered by Amazon's in-house "agentic" coding tool, Kiro. According to sources, the AI decided to "delete and recreate the environment," leading to the extended outage [1]. This highlights a potential risk when AI agents are given the ability to make significant changes without sufficient human oversight.Amazon's Response and Internal Views
Amazon downplayed the incidents, calling them an "extremely limited event" affecting only one service in parts of China. The company insisted it was a "coincidence that AI tools were involved" and that the same issue could have occurred with any developer tool or manual action. They further stated that Kiro requires authorization before taking action, attributing the December outage to a "user access control issue, not an AI autonomy issue."However, internal sources paint a different picture. One senior AWS employee told the FT that there had been at least two production outages in recent months involving AI tools. The employee described the outages as "small but entirely foreseeable," suggesting that engineers allowed the AI agent to resolve an issue without intervention.
