diff --git a/.changeset/short-pears-do.md b/.changeset/short-pears-do.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..940ecbd5c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.changeset/short-pears-do.md
@@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
+---
+'@livekit/agents': patch
+---
+
+When using the `LLM.withAzure` method, the `apiKey` is redundant, but we need to set it to bypass the LLM's default apiKey check
diff --git a/plugins/openai/src/llm.ts b/plugins/openai/src/llm.ts
index b895937a1..0622a6a0d 100644
--- a/plugins/openai/src/llm.ts
+++ b/plugins/openai/src/llm.ts
@@ -100,6 +100,7 @@ export class LLM extends llm.LLM {
     return new LLM({
       temperature: opts.temperature,
       user: opts.user,
+      apiKey: opts.apiKey, // this is redundant, but we need to set it to bypass the LLM's default apiKey check
       client: new AzureOpenAI(opts),
     });
   }