diff --git a/api/types.go b/api/types.go
index 0d6a23f2e..7822a6034 100644
--- a/api/types.go
+++ b/api/types.go
@@ -210,8 +210,7 @@ type EmbeddingRequest struct {
 	Model string `json:"model"`
 
 	// Prompt is the textual prompt to embed.
-	// Prompt string `json:"prompt"`
-	Prompt interface{} `json:"prompt"`
+	Prompt string `json:"prompt"`
 
 	// KeepAlive controls how long the model will stay loaded in memory following
 	// this request.
@@ -223,7 +222,7 @@ type EmbeddingRequest struct {
 
 // EmbeddingResponse is the response from [Client.Embeddings].
 type EmbeddingResponse struct {
-	Embedding [][]float64 `json:"embedding"`
+	Embedding []float64 `json:"embedding"`
 }
 
 // CreateRequest is the request passed to [Client.Create].
diff --git a/llm/server.go b/llm/server.go
index da4cc3bf6..7de1ec1b1 100644
--- a/llm/server.go
+++ b/llm/server.go
@@ -19,7 +19,6 @@ import (
 	"runtime"
 	"strconv"
 	"strings"
-	"sync"
 	"time"
 
 	"golang.org/x/sync/semaphore"
@@ -34,7 +33,7 @@ type LlamaServer interface {
 	Ping(ctx context.Context) error
 	WaitUntilRunning(ctx context.Context) error
 	Completion(ctx context.Context, req CompletionRequest, fn func(CompletionResponse)) error
-	Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompts interface{}) ([][]float64, error)
+	Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompt string) ([]float64, error)
 	Tokenize(ctx context.Context, content string) ([]int, error)
 	Detokenize(ctx context.Context, tokens []int) (string, error)
 	Close() error
@@ -850,7 +849,7 @@ type EmbeddingResponse struct {
 	Embedding []float64 `json:"embedding"`
 }
 
-func (s *llmServer) Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompts interface{}) ([][]float64, error) {
+func (s *llmServer) Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompt string) ([]float64, error) {
 	if err := s.sem.Acquire(ctx, 1); err != nil {
 		slog.Error("Failed to acquire semaphore", "error", err)
 		return nil, err
@@ -865,52 +864,6 @@ func (s *llmServer) Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompts interface{}) ([][]flo
 		return nil, fmt.Errorf("unexpected server status: %s", status.ToString())
 	}
 
-	switch prompts := prompts.(type) {
-	case string:
-		// single prompt
-		embedding, err := s.EmbeddingSingle(ctx, prompts)
-		if err != nil {
-			return nil, err
-		}
-		return [][]float64{embedding}, nil
-	case []string:
-		// multiple prompts
-		errCh := make(chan error, 1)
-		successCh := make(chan [][]float64, 1)
-		num_prompts := len(prompts)
-		embeddings := make([][]float64, num_prompts)
-		var wg sync.WaitGroup
-		wg.Add(num_prompts)
-		for i, p := range prompts {
-			go func(i int, p string) {
-				defer wg.Done()
-				slog.Info("embedding", "prompt", p)
-				embedding, err := s.EmbeddingSingle(ctx, p)
-				if err != nil {
-					errCh <- err
-					return
-				}
-				embeddings[i] = embedding
-			}(i, p)
-		}
-
-		go func() {
-			wg.Wait()
-			successCh <- embeddings
-		}()
-
-		select {
-		case err := <-errCh:
-			return nil, err
-		case embeddings := <-successCh:
-			return embeddings, nil
-		}
-	default:
-		return nil, fmt.Errorf("unsupported prompt type: %T", prompts)
-	}
-}
-
-func (s *llmServer) EmbeddingSingle(ctx context.Context, prompt string) ([]float64, error) {
 	data, err := json.Marshal(TokenizeRequest{Content: prompt})
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, fmt.Errorf("error marshaling embed data: %w", err)
diff --git a/server/routes.go b/server/routes.go
index 794cc840d..f36fe1b08 100644
--- a/server/routes.go
+++ b/server/routes.go
@@ -356,27 +356,6 @@ func (s *Server) EmbeddingsHandler(c *gin.Context) {
 		return
 	}
 
-	// if we want to stick with the one prompt format, we can use custom unmarshalling
-	// otherwise just have separate fields
-
-	switch req.Prompt.(type) {
-	case string:
-	case []interface{}:
-		prompts := make([]string, len(req.Prompt.([]interface{})))
-		for i, p := range req.Prompt.([]interface{}) {
-			if str, ok := p.(string); ok {
-				prompts[i] = str
-			} else {
-				c.AbortWithStatusJSON(http.StatusBadRequest, gin.H{"error": "prompt must be a string or list of strings"})
-				return
-			}
-		}
-		req.Prompt = prompts
-	default:
-		c.AbortWithStatusJSON(http.StatusBadRequest, gin.H{"error": "prompt must be a string or list of strings"})
-		return
-	}
-
 	model, err := GetModel(req.Model)
 	if err != nil {
 		var pErr *fs.PathError
@@ -410,26 +389,13 @@ func (s *Server) EmbeddingsHandler(c *gin.Context) {
 		return
 	}
 
-	var embedding [][]float64
-
-	switch prompt := req.Prompt.(type) {
-	case string:
-		if prompt == "" {
-			c.JSON(http.StatusOK, api.EmbeddingResponse{Embedding: [][]float64{}})
-			return
-		}
-		embedding, err = runner.llama.Embedding(c.Request.Context(), prompt)
-	case []string:
-		if len(prompt) == 0 {
-			c.JSON(http.StatusOK, api.EmbeddingResponse{Embedding: [][]float64{}})
-			return
-		}
-		embedding, err = runner.llama.Embedding(c.Request.Context(), prompt)
-	default:
-		c.AbortWithStatus(http.StatusInternalServerError)
+	// an empty request loads the model
+	if req.Prompt == "" {
+		c.JSON(http.StatusOK, api.EmbeddingResponse{Embedding: []float64{}})
 		return
 	}
 
+	embedding, err := runner.llama.Embedding(c.Request.Context(), req.Prompt)
 	if err != nil {
 		slog.Info(fmt.Sprintf("embedding generation failed: %v", err))
 		c.JSON(http.StatusInternalServerError, gin.H{"error": "failed to generate embedding"})
diff --git a/server/sched_test.go b/server/sched_test.go
index 6c0cbfee1..953288347 100644
--- a/server/sched_test.go
+++ b/server/sched_test.go
@@ -608,7 +608,7 @@ type mockLlm struct {
 	pingResp           error
 	waitResp           error
 	completionResp     error
-	embeddingResp      [][]float64
+	embeddingResp      []float64
 	embeddingRespErr   error
 	tokenizeResp       []int
 	tokenizeRespErr    error
@@ -626,8 +626,7 @@ func (s *mockLlm) WaitUntilRunning(ctx context.Context) error { return s.waitRes
 func (s *mockLlm) Completion(ctx context.Context, req llm.CompletionRequest, fn func(llm.CompletionResponse)) error {
 	return s.completionResp
 }
-
-func (s *mockLlm) Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompts interface{}) ([][]float64, error) {
+func (s *mockLlm) Embedding(ctx context.Context, prompt string) ([]float64, error) {
 	return s.embeddingResp, s.embeddingRespErr
 }
 func (s *mockLlm) Tokenize(ctx context.Context, content string) ([]int, error) {