OpenAI / deprecation
OpenAI Assistants API shut down in favor of Responses and Conversations
OpenAI has shut down the Assistants API and directs integrations to the Responses API, with Conversations used for persistent state. The migration changes the core object model from Assistants, Threads, Runs, and Run Steps to Prompts, Conversations, Responses, and Items.
- Affected product / version
- OpenAI Assistants API
- Announced
- Effective
- Source checked
Checked against the linked documentation on 2026-09-07. Recheck the vendor documentation before acting.
What to check in your application
PlaintextML interpretation of the documented change:
- Inventory calls to the beta assistants, threads, messages, and runs resources; replace them with Responses calls and decide whether each workflow needs a durable Conversation object.
- Retest tool-call loops and state handling because Responses exposes generalized items and expects the application to manage explicit tool execution differently from Assistants runs.
Limits and uncertainty
OpenAI's deprecations section heading says 2025-08-20 while its body says developers were notified on 2025-08-26; announced_on uses the explicit notification date. Migration effort depends on which Assistants features and hosted tools an application used.
Official sources
Revision history
- — Initial record added after checking the linked official documentation; migration checks are editorial interpretation.
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