AssemblyAI Ships AssemblyAI-TTS-1: A $15 per 1M Character Text-to-Speech API for Voice Agents

AssemblyAI released AssemblyAI-TTS-1, its first text-to-speech model, now generally available as a hosted API in US and EU regions, priced at $15 per 1M characters with unlimited concurrency and no contract. AssemblyAI's self-reported tests show 93.7% entity accuracy and 47 ms median time to first byte, while Cekura's independent benchmark measured 159 ms median streaming latency and 81.5% reading accuracy. At launch it supports six languages, 4,000+ voices and instant voice cloning, but lacks SSML, speed control, pronunciation dictionaries and emotion tags.