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AWS took the promise that a Bedrock model lives a year out of the rulebook — and put it in the model card

Amazon has split the rules that decide how long a model on Amazon Bedrock is guaranteed to answer. Models launched before 7 September 2026 keep the old policy; everything launched on or after that date falls under a new one, and the new one no longer contains the two sentences customers used to plan around. The old page — still live, now titled "Model lifecycle (Legacy)" — makes two platform-wide promises. First: "Once a model launches on Amazon Bedrock, it will remain on Amazon Bedrock for at least 12 months before the EOL date." Second: "A model will be in the Legacy state for at least 6 months before the EOL date" — that is, at least half a year of notice before the switch-off. Neither sentence appears on the new page. What appears instead is a per-model arrangement. The new policy says every model card shows two things: an "EOL no sooner than" date, and the Legacy period, meaning the notice given before end of life. And the notice period is no longer one number: "There are two Legacy periods: 6 months and 45 days. Most models have a 6-month Legacy period." A 45-day wind-down is now written into the rules as an option a provider can take. So far nobody has taken it. We read nine model cards across Amazon, OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Z.ai, MiniMax, Moonshot and TwelveLabs, including the newest arrival on the platform: GPT-6 Astra, launched 8 September 2026 — one day after the cutover, and therefore among the first models governed by the new policy. Its card reads "EOL no sooner than: September 8, 2027" and "Legacy period: at least 6 months". Twelve months of life, six months of notice: exactly the old terms, now stated for one model rather than promised to everyone. One clause went the customer's way. The old policy describes a "public extended access" phase: after at least three months in Legacy, a model enters a stretch in which it keeps running but, as AWS puts it, "you should expect higher pricing, which will be set by the model provider". The new policy does not mention public extended access at all. The last months of a model's life were the leg where the bill could rise; that leg is not in the new rules. The practical consequence is small today and structural tomorrow. Anyone building on a hosted model has to answer one architectural question — how long will this thing keep answering — and until now Bedrock answered it once, for the whole catalogue. Now the answer sits in each model card, set per model, and a provider who wants to move fast has a 45-day door available. The number to check is no longer in the terms; it is on the card. The old rules, meanwhile, are still doing their work. On 14 September 2026 Bedrock switched off Amazon Nova Sonic, the company's first speech-to-speech model, and Amazon Nova Premier, its first frontier-class model and the designated teacher for the cheaper Nova line. Both were moved to Legacy on 13 March 2026 — six months' notice to the day. Nova Canvas and Nova Reel, Amazon's image and video models, go on 30 September, and Amazon has named no successor for either.