ElevenLabs Scribe v3 Is Live: Three API Changes That Matter

ElevenLabs held its Summit NYC at Lincoln Center last week and dropped 13 product announcements. For most developers, the number is a distraction. What matters is narrower: Scribe v3 is live in the API, agent workflows can now be version-controlled in code, and one deprecated model has a hard removal date that will break integrations silently if you don’t act.

Scribe v3: Ship It This Week

The headline release is Scribe v3, ElevenLabs’ new speech-to-text model available immediately via the existing Speech-to-Text API. It delivers 27% fewer word errors than Scribe v2 across 102 languages on the FLEURS benchmark, reaching 1.9% AA-WER — joint top of the Artificial Analysis STT leaderboard alongside AssemblyAI. Switching costs nothing beyond a one-line change to your model_id:

curl -X POST https://api.elevenlabs.io/v1/speech-to-text \
  -H "xi-api-key: YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -F "model_id=scribe_v3" \
  -F "file=@audio.mp3" \
  -F "language_code=en"

The real-time variant, scribe_v3_live, adds speaker labeling mid-conversation, turn prediction, and a keyterm library supporting up to 10,000 domain-specific terms. It’s priced at $0.22/hr and is now the default transcription layer inside ElevenAgents — meaning any voice agent already on the platform gets the accuracy upgrade automatically. For mixed-language audio, use secondary_language_codes. For sensitive pipelines, set enable_logging: false for zero-retention mode.

Workflows as Code: Version-Control Your Agent Logic

The less-hyped but more significant shift is Workflows as Code, available in Python and JavaScript SDKs from v2.77.0. You can now build, version, and deploy agent conversation flows entirely in code — conditional routing, tool call triggers, multi-agent handoffs, all serializable to JSON for storage in your repository:

triage.when(
    Expr.variable("tier").eq("gold")
).transfer("vip", Destination.agent("agent_vip"))

# Serialize for version control
json_str = wf.to_json_string()

Workflows created in code remain editable in the visual editor — no lock-in. For teams already running CI/CD on AI pipelines, this closes a real gap. ElevenLabs also added 24 new tools to its Hosted MCP Server for agent inspection: analytics, configuration, alerts, and test invocation.

The Urgent One: SFX v2 Is Removed March 1, 2027

The item most likely to generate a 3 AM incident: eleven_text_to_sound_v2 is deprecated and will be removed on March 1, 2027. If your code passes model_id: "eleven_text_to_sound_v2" explicitly, change it to "eleven_text_to_sound_v3" before that date. If you don’t specify a model_id, the platform auto-migrates and you’re clear.

The risk is code that locked the model ID months ago and hasn’t been touched since. GitHub issues are already appearing across open-source projects. Run a codebase search, check the November 2 changelog, and migrate now rather than under pressure in February. SFX v3 handles multi-part prompts and vocal or musical sounds more accurately anyway — there’s real upside beyond avoiding breakage.

ElevenAI the App: Useful Preview, Not an API (Yet)

The Summit’s marquee announcement was ElevenAI, a team app combining meeting transcription, cross-meeting search, dictation, and ElevenAgent-driven follow-up actions. It runs on Scribe v3 internally, supports 90+ languages, and targets the Otter.ai and Fireflies market. It’s in free early access — sign up at elevenlabs.io, don’t look for an app download. There’s no developer API surface yet. When it opens one, the combination of real-time transcription and agent-driven actions will matter. For now, it’s a useful preview of platform direction.

What to Do Now

• Update any model_id calls to scribe_v3 for immediate accuracy gains
• Upgrade to Python or JS SDK v2.77.0+ to access Workflows as Code
• Search your codebase for eleven_text_to_sound_v2 and migrate to v3
• Check the Scribe v3 API reference for the full parameter list

ElevenLabs shipped 550+ partners, announced 15 MW of NVIDIA Vera Rubin compute, and previewed enterprise custom model fine-tuning. The Workflows as Code release and the ElevenAgents Unity SDK for spatial audio signal where the company is heading: infrastructure, not just an API. The free tier still runs up to the Creator plan at $22/month for most self-serve builders.