From 91e86658b79fed77c16d436b1ba875968aeb68bc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: =?UTF-8?q?G=C3=B6kmen=20G=C3=B6rgen?=
 <goekmen.goergen@ai-coustics.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2026 14:37:44 +0100
Subject: [PATCH] force developer to set a license key, it's required.

---
 src/pipecat/audio/filters/aic_filter.py | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/pipecat/audio/filters/aic_filter.py b/src/pipecat/audio/filters/aic_filter.py
index 05536aebf..94811479c 100644
--- a/src/pipecat/audio/filters/aic_filter.py
+++ b/src/pipecat/audio/filters/aic_filter.py
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@ class AICFilter(BaseAudioFilter):
     def __init__(
         self,
         *,
-        license_key: str = "",
+        license_key: str,
         model_id: Optional[str] = None,
         model_path: Optional[str] = None,
         model_download_dir: Optional[Path] = None,