Migrate from OpenAI TTS to AssemblyAI before the January 2027 shutdown

OpenAI plans to retire tts-1, tts-1-hd, and specified gpt-4o-mini-tts models on January 6, 2027, requiring users of its `/v1/audio/speech` endpoint either to adopt its session-based Realtime API workflow or migrate to another provider. The material presents AssemblyAI’s OpenAI-compatible Text-to-Speech endpoint as a lower-effort alternative: developers can retain the OpenAI SDK and request structure while changing the base URL, API key, and model name to an AssemblyAI language model. It describes mappings for English OpenAI voice names, native voice options for other languages, available output formats and sample rates, pricing of $15 per million input characters, and differences from OpenAI’s service, including unsupported formats, fixed speed, ignored tone instructions, character-based limits and usage reporting, and lack of word timings. It also emphasizes connection reuse, keep-alive configuration, manual handling of rate-limit retries, and compatibility with LiveKit and Pipecat integrations. For real-time voice agents needing streamed text, interruption handling, persistent sessions, or word-level timing data, it recommends moving beyond the compatibility layer to AssemblyAI’s native WebSocket API or framework plugins.

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