Significant Slowdown in Whisper and GPT-4o Transcribe APIs (since May 2026)

Hi everyone, I’ve been using the OpenAI transcription models (whisper-1, gpt-4o-transcribe, and gpt-4o-mini-transcribe) in a production environment for about a year without any major issues. However, since around the beginning of this week (approx. May 4–6, 2026), I’ve noticed a significant and consistent slowdown across all transcription models. Processing times have roughly doubled compared to what I was experiencing before. This issue affects: * whisper-1 * gpt-4o-transcribe * gpt-4o-mini-transcribe The slowdown is not limited to a specific file or request. It appears to be consistent across different audio inputs and persists over multiple days. Important notes: * No changes were made to my code or infrastructure * The same audio files that were previously processed quickly are now much slower * The issue occurs consistently, not just intermittently This is currently impacting a production workflow, so the increased latency is becoming a serious problem. I wanted to ask: * Is anyone else experiencing similar performance issues? * Are there any known infrastructure changes, regional slowdowns, or ongoing incidents affecting transcription services? * Has anything changed recently regarding model prioritization or performance? Any insights would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.