Kiro is Amazon Web Services' agentic IDE, launched in public preview in July 2025 and reaching general availability in November 2025. Built on a VS Code core and powered primarily by Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4, Kiro is AWS's flagship answer to the wave of AI-native coding tools, positioned around spec-driven development rather than free-form prompting.
The core idea is that plain-English prompts are first converted into structured project specifications, including requirements, design documents, and test plans, before any code is written. The agent then implements features against those specs, with hooks for tests, deployment, and continuous integration. AWS emphasizes that this front-loads clarity and team alignment, while still capturing the speed advantage of AI-generated code. Notable capabilities introduced around general availability include property-based testing that derives requirements from specs, step-by-step checkpointing that can roll back any number of changes, a full CLI agent, and enterprise management via IAM Identity Center.
Kiro is sold as an AWS product rather than a standalone startup. As of late 2025 and into 2026, AWS offers a free tier with around 50 agentic interactions per month, a Pro tier at $19 per user per month with roughly 1,000 interactions, and a Pro Plus tier at $39 per user per month with around 3,000 interactions. Enterprise customers can manage Kiro alongside their existing AWS identity and billing footprint.
Kiro is most relevant to teams that already operate on AWS or value structured planning before generation, including engineering organizations that want AI assistance with auditable specs and tests rather than free-form chat. It is less suited to solo hobbyists who prefer lightweight free tools or shops with strict policies against sending source code to U.S. hyperscaler-hosted AI services.