Conversation context

The conversation_context field lets you supply dialogue that preceded the audio provided in the current request. It gives the model continuity across a multi-turn conversation (for example, a human speaking with a voice agent) to boost transcription accuracy, while still transcribing only the current turn. Include turns from either side of the conversation as separate list items in chronological order (oldest first, most recent last), where a single string is treated as one turn.

Value: an array of strings (one per turn) or a single string (treated as one turn)
Maximum: 100 turns / 4096 characters total — context over either cap is trimmed, not rejected
If the context exceeds a cap or the model’s context window, the oldest turns (those at the start of the list) are dropped first
Entries carry no speaker labels — include the agent’s replies and the caller’s utterances as separate entries

The example below passes the three previous turns of the conversation, where the current audio being transcribed is the caller responding with their order number.

Python
Python SDK
JavaScript
cURL

import json
import requests

with open("sample.wav", "rb") as f:
    audio = f.read()

config = {
    "conversation_context": [
        "Hi, thank you for calling. How can I help?",
        "I'd like to check on the status of my order.",
        "Got it. Do you know your order ID number?",
    ],
}

response = requests.post(
    "https://sync.assemblyai.com/transcribe",
    headers={
        "Authorization": "<YOUR_API_KEY>",
        "X-AAI-Model": "universal-3-5-pro",
    },
    files={
        "audio": ("sample.wav", audio, "audio/wav"),
        "config": (None, json.dumps(config), "application/json"),
    },
    timeout=60,
)
response.raise_for_status()
print(response.json()["text"])

import assemblyai as aai

aai.settings.api_key = "<YOUR_API_KEY>"

config = aai.SyncTranscriptionConfig(
    conversation_context=[
        "Hi, thank you for calling. How can I help?",
        "I'd like to check on the status of my order.",
        "Got it. Do you know your order ID number?",
    ],
)

result = aai.SyncTranscriber().transcribe("sample.wav", config=config)
print(result.text)

import { readFileSync } from "fs";

const audio = readFileSync("sample.wav");
const config = {
  conversation_context: [
    "Hi, thank you for calling. How can I help?",
    "I'd like to check on the status of my order.",
    "Got it. Do you know your order ID number?",
  ],
};

const form = new FormData();
form.append("audio", new Blob([audio], { type: "audio/wav" }), "sample.wav");
form.append(
  "config",
  new Blob([JSON.stringify(config)], { type: "application/json" })
);

const response = await fetch("https://sync.assemblyai.com/transcribe", {
  method: "POST",
  headers: {
    Authorization: "<YOUR_API_KEY>",
    "X-AAI-Model": "universal-3-5-pro",
  },
  body: form,
});

const result = await response.json();
console.log(result.text);

curl -X POST https://sync.assemblyai.com/transcribe \
  -H 'Authorization: <YOUR_API_KEY>' \
  -H 'X-AAI-Model: universal-3-5-pro' \
  -F 'audio=@sample.wav;type=audio/wav' \
  -F 'config={"conversation_context":["Hi, thank you for calling. How can I help?","I'"'"'d like to check on the status of my order.","Got it. Do you know your order ID number?"]};type=application/json'

Combining with other features

conversation_context composes with prompting and keyterms in the same config part — describe the call with prompt, list explicit vocabulary with keyterms_prompt, and pass the preceding dialogue with conversation_context.

Looking for streaming context?

For live audio, Real-time STT carries context across turns automatically within a session, and voice agents can interleave their replies with the agent_context parameter. See Context carryover (Real-time).

​Combining with other features

​Looking for streaming context?

Combining with other features

Looking for streaming context?