AWS Lambda now supports a 90-minute function timeout for asynchronous and event source mapping (ESM) invocations on AWS Lambda Managed Instances (LMI), a capability of AWS Lambda. This is a 6x increase from the previous 15-minute limit. Customers running data processing, media transcoding, financial calculations, AI inference, and batch workloads can now use Lambda functions for jobs that require longer continuous execution, without re-architecting their applications.
This also applies to invocations within Lambda durable functions , which use checkpoints to track progress and automatically recover from failures through replay, skipping completed work. When invoked asynchronously, a multi-step durable execution can run for up to 1 year. Lambda’s function timeout has increased over time, from 5 minutes at launch in 2014 to 15 minutes in 2018. As customers sought to use the simplicity of Lambda for data-intensive workloads, the 15-minute timeout limit forced architectural tradeoffs for applications where customers needed longer continuous execution time.
Several patterns emerged: Media processing : Speech-to-text transcription and video transcoding that routinely need longer than 15 minutes of continuous execution. Financial calculations : Monte Carlo simulations, bond pricing, and portfolio risk analysis that are memory-intensive and often require longer than 15 minutes. Data processing and ETL pipelines : Batch jobs processing multi-gigabyte datasets or aggregating data from external sources that exceed 15 minutes during peak volumes.
AI inference : Model testing and inference jobs (for example, reasoning tasks) that fit Lambda’s memory and CPU profile but exceed its timeout. Web scraping and file transfer : Crawling external sites or pulling large file sets from vendors that exceed 15 minutes when sources respond slowly. In each case, customers preferred Lambda’s simplicity but had to re-architect when jobs hit the 15-minute limit. Fast forward to 2026, Lambda supports two form factors: functions (event-driven, 15-minute timeout), and MicroVMs for user or AI-generated just-in-time code (HTTP-driven, 8-hour duration).