Is AssemblyAI Down? How to Check AssemblyAI Status in 2026

How to Check If AssemblyAI Is Down

1. Check the Official AssemblyAI Status Page

AssemblyAI's status page at status.assemblyai.com tracks each component separately: the Transcription API, real-time streaming API, LeMUR (Audio Intelligence) API, and the dashboard. Check here first to understand whether it's an outage or a queue backlog.

Subscribe to email notifications on the status page — AssemblyAI's team posts updates during incidents, which is more reliable than waiting for transcription jobs to timeout.

2. Test the Transcription API Directly

Submit a minimal transcription job to test API availability:

# Submit a transcription job
curl https://api.assemblyai.com/v2/transcript \
  -H "Authorization: $ASSEMBLYAI_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"audio_url": "https://assembly.ai/sports_injuries.mp3"}'

# Poll the transcription status (replace TRANSCRIPT_ID)
curl https://api.assemblyai.com/v2/transcript/TRANSCRIPT_ID \
  -H "Authorization: $ASSEMBLYAI_API_KEY"

A successful job submission returns a transcript ID with status "queued". If the submission itself fails with a 503 or connection error, the API is down. If the job gets stuck in "processing" for more than 10 minutes for a short audio file, check for a processing backlog on the status page.

3. Distinguish an Outage from a Stuck Job

A common confusion: AssemblyAI isn't down, but a transcription job is stuck in "processing". This can happen when: (1) the audio URL is inaccessible or returns a redirect, (2) the audio format is unsupported, or (3) there's a processing backlog during peak hours. Test with AssemblyAI's own sample audio URL to rule out issues with your audio file.

4. Check the Real-Time Streaming API Separately

AssemblyAI's real-time streaming API (WebSocket-based) and the async transcription API have separate serving infrastructure. If your live captioning is broken but batch transcription works, the issue is the streaming service specifically. Check status.assemblyai.com for streaming API status.

5. Use API Status Check for Automated Monitoring

API Status Check monitors AssemblyAI's transcription and streaming endpoints continuously. Get Slack, email, or PagerDuty alerts the moment transcription fails.

Why Does AssemblyAI Go Down or Slow Down?

AssemblyAI's transcription platform has unique failure modes compared to other AI APIs:

• Processing Queue Backlog: Unlike LLM APIs that return immediately, transcription is an async job. During high-demand periods, the processing queue can back up, causing long delays that look like outages but aren't — the API accepts jobs fine but takes longer to process them.
• GPU Cluster Scaling Lags: Transcription is computationally intensive. When traffic spikes suddenly (product launches, live event transcriptions), GPU autoscaling can lag by several minutes, creating temporary backpressure.
• Audio File Access Failures: AssemblyAI fetches your audio from the URL you provide. If your storage (S3, GCS, CDN) has an outage or access restrictions, AssemblyAI will report an error that looks like an API failure but is actually a retrieval issue on their end.
• LeMUR API Overload: AssemblyAI's LeMUR (LLM over audio) feature runs transcription + LLM analysis in a pipeline. LLM capacity issues on their end can cause LeMUR jobs to fail even when plain transcription works.
• Real-Time Streaming WebSocket Failures: The streaming API uses WebSocket connections that can be disrupted by network path changes, TLS handshake issues, or WebSocket server restarts during deployments.

AssemblyAI Troubleshooting Checklist

AssemblyAI Alternatives for Failover

Building Resilient AssemblyAI Integrations

AssemblyAI's async model means building for resilience looks different than for synchronous APIs:

async function transcribeWithFallback(audioUrl: string) {
  // Try AssemblyAI first
  try {
    const response = await fetch('https://api.assemblyai.com/v2/transcript', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: {
        'Authorization': process.env.ASSEMBLYAI_API_KEY!,
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      },
      body: JSON.stringify({ audio_url: audioUrl }),
      signal: AbortSignal.timeout(10000), // 10s timeout for submission
    });
    if (response.ok) {
      const job = await response.json();
      return { provider: 'assemblyai', jobId: job.id };
    }
  } catch (e) {
    console.warn('AssemblyAI submission failed, falling back to Deepgram');
  }

  // Fall back to Deepgram
  const dgResponse = await fetch('https://api.deepgram.com/v1/listen?callback=YOUR_WEBHOOK', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Authorization': `Token ${process.env.DEEPGRAM_API_KEY}`,
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({ url: audioUrl }),
  });
  const dgJob = await dgResponse.json();
  return { provider: 'deepgram', jobId: dgJob.request_id };
}

AssemblyAI Uptime & Outage History

AssemblyAI has generally maintained strong availability for its async transcription API. Most incidents involve processing queue delays during high-traffic events rather than full API unavailability. The real-time streaming API has historically experienced slightly more instability due to the complexity of persistent WebSocket connections at scale. Full platform outages are rare and typically resolved within 1–2 hours.

For real-time uptime monitoring, check API Status Check's AssemblyAI monitoring page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Don't Let AssemblyAI Outages Stall Your Audio Pipeline

Whether you're running a meeting recorder, a podcast search engine, or a call analytics platform, AssemblyAI downtime means lost transcriptions and broken user experiences. Get ahead of outages with automated monitoring.