AWS Retires Bedrock Agents Classic: New Projects Must Start on AgentCore

Amazon's original Bedrock Agents service entered maintenance mode July 30 — no new customers, frozen model catalog. New agent projects belong on AgentCore.

Amazon Bedrock Agents (launched November 2023) is now "Classic" and closed to new customers as of July 30, 2026. Existing deployments keep running, but the model catalog is frozen — models released after July 30 are only available through AgentCore.

AgentCore is the architectural successor: each session runs in an isolated microVM (filesystem + shell access), orchestration is model-agnostic (Claude, OpenAI, Gemini, or any Bedrock model), and the managed harness handles the full reasoning/tool/memory loop automatically. Setup takes ~3 API calls. The harness went GA in June 2026.

One migration warning: poorly designed multi-agent setups on AgentCore can cost ~3× more than a lean single-agent design on Classic — microVM billing makes architecture choices matter more.

Why it matters: Don't start a new agent project on Bedrock Classic. It's a maintenance path, not a development platform.

Sources: Bedrock Agents Classic Maintenance Mode — AWS Docs · AWS Cuts AI Agent Setup to 3 API Calls — Forbes · AWS Just Retired Its Flagship AI Agent — AWS in Plain English