Migration guide: AWS Transcribe to AssemblyAI

This guide walks through the process of migrating from AWS Transcribe to AssemblyAI for transcribing pre-recorded audio.

Get Started

Before we begin, make sure you have an AssemblyAI account and an API key. You can sign up for a free account and get your API key from your dashboard.

Side-by-side code comparison

Below is a side-by-side comparison of a basic snippet to transcribe a file by AWS Transcribe and AssemblyAI:

AWS Transcribe
AssemblyAI

import time
import boto3

def transcribe_file(job_name, file_uri, transcribe_client):
    transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
        TranscriptionJobName=job_name,
        Media={"MediaFileUri": file_uri},
        MediaFormat="wav",
        LanguageCode="en-US",
    )

    max_tries = 60
    while max_tries > 0:
        max_tries -= 1

        job = transcribe_client.get_transcription_job(
            TranscriptionJobName=job_name
        )

        job_status = job["TranscriptionJob"]["TranscriptionJobStatus"]

        if job_status in ["COMPLETED", "FAILED"]:
            print(f"Job {job_name} is {job_status}.")

        if job_status == "COMPLETED":
            print(
                f"Download the transcript from\n"
                f"\t{job['TranscriptionJob']['Transcript']['TranscriptFileUri']}."
            )
            break
        else:
            print(f"Waiting for {job_name}. Current status is {job_status}.")
            time.sleep(10)

def main():
    transcribe_client = boto3.client("transcribe")
    file_uri = "s3://test-transcribe/answer2.wav"
    transcribe_file("Example-job", file_uri, transcribe_client)

if name == "main":
    main()

import assemblyai as aai

aai.settings.api_key = "YOUR-API-KEY"
transcriber = aai.Transcriber()

# You can use a local filepath:
# audio_file = "./example.mp3"
# Or use a publicly-accessible URL:
audio_file = (
    "https://assembly.ai/sports_injuries.mp3"
)

config = aai.TranscriptionConfig(
    speech_models=["universal-3-pro", "universal-2"],
    language_detection=True,
    speaker_labels=True,
)
transcript = transcriber.transcribe(audio_file, config)

if transcript.status == aai.TranscriptStatus.error:
    print(f"Transcription failed: {transcript.error}")
    exit(1)

print(transcript.text)
for utterance in transcript.utterances:
    print(f"Speaker {utterance.speaker}: {utterance.text}")

Installation

AWS Transcribe
AssemblyAI

import boto3
import time

transcribe_client = boto3.client("transcribe")

import assemblyai as aai

aai.settings.api_key = "YOUR-API-KEY"
transcriber = aai.Transcriber()

When migrating from AWS to AssemblyAI, you’ll first need to handle authentication and SDK setup: Get your API key from your AssemblyAI dashboard Things to know:

Store your API key securely in an environment variable
API key authentication works the same across all AssemblyAI SDKs

Audio File Sources

AWS Transcribe
AssemblyAI

def transcribe_file(job_name, file_uri, transcribe_client):
    transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
        TranscriptionJobName=job_name,
        Media={"MediaFileUri": file_uri},
        MediaFormat="wav",
        LanguageCode="en-US",
    )

transcriber = aai.Transcriber()

# Local files

transcript = transcriber.transcribe("./audio.mp3")

# Public URLs

transcript = transcriber.transcribe("https://example.com/audio.mp3")

# S3 files (using pre-signed URLs)

s3_client = boto3.client('s3')
presigned_url = s3_client.generate_presigned_url(
'get_object',
Params={'Bucket': 'my-bucket', 'Key': 'audio.mp3'},
ExpiresIn=3600
)
transcript = transcriber.transcribe(presigned_url)

Here are helpful things to know when migrating your audio input handling:

There’s no need to specify the audio format to AssemblyAI - it’s auto-detected. AssemblyAI accepts almost every audio/video file type: here is a full list of all our supported file types
Our SDK handles file upload and transcription automatically in one step
For S3 files, you’ll need to generate pre-signed URLs (see example in cookbook)

Basic Transcription

AWS Transcribe
AssemblyAI

while max_tries > 0:
    max_tries -= 1
    job = transcribe_client.get_transcription_job(
        TranscriptionJobName=job_name
    )
    job_status = job["TranscriptionJob"]["TranscriptionJobStatus"]
    if job_status in ["COMPLETED", "FAILED"]:
        break
    time.sleep(10)

transcriber = aai.Transcriber()

# Local files

transcript = transcriber.transcribe("./audio.mp3")

# Public URLs

transcript = transcriber.transcribe("https://example.com/audio.mp3")

# S3 files (using pre-signed URLs)

s3_client = boto3.client('s3')
presigned_url = s3_client.generate_presigned_url(
    'get_object',
    Params={'Bucket': 'my-bucket', 'Key': 'audio.mp3'},
    ExpiresIn=3600
)
transcript = transcriber.transcribe(presigned_url)

Here are helpful things to know about our transcribe method:

The SDK handles polling under the hood
Transcript is directly accessible via transcript.text
English is the default language. We recommend specifying speech_models=["universal-3-pro", "universal-2"] for the highest accuracy
We have a cookbook for error handling common errors when using our API.

Adding Features

AWS Transcribe
AssemblyAI

transcribe_client.start_transcription_job(
    TranscriptionJobName=job_name,
    Media={"MediaFileUri": file_uri},
    Settings={
        "ShowSpeakerLabels": True,
        "MaxSpeakerLabels": 2
    }
)

config = aai.TranscriptionConfig(
    speech_models=["universal-3-pro", "universal-2"],
    language_detection=True,
    speaker_labels=True,           # Speaker diarization
    auto_chapters=True,           # Auto chapter detection
    entity_detection=True,        # Named entity detection
)

transcript = transcriber.transcribe(audio_file, config)

# Access speaker labels

for utterance in transcript.utterances:
    print(f"Speaker {utterance.speaker}: {utterance.text}")

Key differences:

Use aai.TranscriptionConfig to specify any extra features that you wish to use
The results for Speaker Diarization are stored in transcript.utterances. To see the full transcript response object, refer to our API Reference.
Check our documentation for our full list of available features and their parameters

Documentation Index

​Get Started

​Side-by-side code comparison

​Installation

​Audio File Sources

​Basic Transcription