diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index d7c617a5f..9b3757920 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -69,6 +69,8 @@ and this project adheres to [Semantic Versioning](https://semver.org/spec/v2.0.0
 
 ### Fixed
 
+- Fixed AsyncAI WS TTS startup latency by sending `force=true`
+
 - Fixed an issue with the `BaseWhisperSTTService` where the language was
   specified as an enum and not a string.
 
diff --git a/src/pipecat/services/asyncai/tts.py b/src/pipecat/services/asyncai/tts.py
index e37aa20fa..aa18183fd 100644
--- a/src/pipecat/services/asyncai/tts.py
+++ b/src/pipecat/services/asyncai/tts.py
@@ -335,7 +335,7 @@ class AsyncAITTSService(InterruptibleTTSService):
                 yield TTSStartedFrame()
                 self._started = True
 
-            msg = self._build_msg(text=text)
+            msg = self._build_msg(text=text, force=True)
 
             try:
                 await self._get_websocket().send(msg)