Amazon pushes back on Financial Times report blaming AI coding tools for AWS outages

Amazon's cloud computing arm, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has issued a forceful public rebuttal to a Financial Times (FT) report alleging that the company’s internal AI coding tools were responsible for at least two recent service disruptions. The tech giant dismissed a key claim as "entirely false" and attributed a single, minor December incident to user error rather than AI. This unusual and pointed response highlights the growing scrutiny surrounding the deployment of agentic AI in critical infrastructure.

Key takeaways

• Amazon Web Services (AWS) publicly and strongly denied a Financial Times report blaming its AI coding tools for recent outages.
• AWS stated that the FT's claim of a second outage caused by AI was "entirely false."
• A single, limited disruption in December was acknowledged but attributed to user error in configuring access controls, not a flaw in the Kiro AI tool itself.
• The acknowledged incident affected only AWS Cost Explorer in a single region in mainland China, without impacting core customer-facing services or generating customer inquiries.
• Amazon has implemented new safeguards, including mandatory peer review for production access, to prevent similar occurrences.

What happened

In mid-February, the Financial Times published an article asserting that Amazon’s internal AI coding tools, specifically an agentic assistant named Kiro, had caused at least two AWS outages in recent months. The FT, citing four anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported a 13-hour interruption to an AWS system in December. According to these sources, engineers had permitted Kiro to make changes, leading the AI tool to decide the optimal action was to "delete and recreate the environment." The report further suggested this was the second such AI-involved disruption.

Amazon Web Services subsequently issued a blog post titled "Correcting the Financial Times report about AWS, Kiro, and AI," directly refuting the core allegations. AWS acknowledged a limited disruption to a single service in one region last December but firmly stated it was due to a misconfigured role—a "user error" that could occur with any development tool, AI-powered or not. Crucially, Amazon declared the FT's claim of a second incident impacting AWS was "entirely false," with an AWS spokesperson clarifying to GeekWire that any such event referenced did not take place within the AWS business.

Why it matters

The public dispute between Amazon and the Financial Times underscores the significant stakes involved in the rapid deployment of agentic AI tools. The FT's narrative, widely circulated, presented a cautionary tale about the potential risks and the complex question of accountability when autonomous AI systems are integrated into critical operational environments. For Amazon, a company that is not only using agentic AI in its own operations but also actively selling these tools to AWS customers, any perception of AI-induced instability in its cloud services is particularly unwelcome.

AWS stands as Amazon's most profitable division, reporting $35.6 billion in revenue and $12.5 billion in operating income last quarter. The cloud unit is a major focus of Amazon's ambitious $200-billion capital spending plan for the year, with a substantial portion earmarked for AI infrastructure. The “unusually pointed” nature of Amazon’s rebuttal, described by New York Times reporter Mike Isaac as "the most prickly" he'd seen in years, reflects the company's determination to control the narrative around AI reliability and user responsibility in its foundational cloud services.

Key details / context

The December disruption acknowledged by Amazon was specifically limited to AWS Cost Explorer, a tool designed to help customers monitor and manage their cloud spending. This incident occurred in one of AWS's 39 geographic regions, located in mainland China. Importantly, Amazon emphasized that the disruption did not impact core AWS services such as compute, storage, or databases, and the company reported receiving no customer inquiries regarding the event. Amazon’s core defense consistently hinged on the distinction between "user error" and "AI error," maintaining that the fault lay in human configuration rather than the Kiro tool's inherent capabilities.

What happens next

Following the acknowledged December incident, Amazon has proactively implemented new safeguards to prevent similar occurrences. These measures include the introduction of mandatory peer review for production access, reinforcing human oversight in critical operational changes. The source content does not provide further details regarding any ongoing investigations or additional future steps beyond these implemented safeguards.

FAQ

Q: What was the primary claim made by the Financial Times? A: The FT reported that Amazon's Kiro AI coding tools caused at least two recent AWS outages, including a 13-hour disruption in December.

Q: How did Amazon respond to the Financial Times report? A: Amazon issued a public rebuttal, calling the claim of a second outage "entirely false" and attributing a single, limited disruption to user error, not AI error.

Q: What AWS service was affected in the acknowledged December incident? A: The disruption was limited to AWS Cost Explorer in one region in mainland China, a tool used for tracking cloud spending.