diff --git a/src/deepsparse/transformers/pipelines/text_generation/nl_engine_operator.py b/src/deepsparse/transformers/pipelines/text_generation/nl_engine_operator.py
index f78d4306d1..1f631573ae 100644
--- a/src/deepsparse/transformers/pipelines/text_generation/nl_engine_operator.py
+++ b/src/deepsparse/transformers/pipelines/text_generation/nl_engine_operator.py
@@ -208,7 +208,9 @@ def run(self, inp: NLEngineInputs, **kwargs) -> NLEngineOutputs:
         inputs = list(map(self._add_kv_cache_to_input, engine_input, kv_cache))
         inputs = join_engine_outputs(inputs, len(inputs))
 
-        if bool(kv_cache[0].engine_internal_cache):
+        internal_kv_cache_present = bool(kv_cache[0].engine_internal_cache)
+
+        if internal_kv_cache_present:
             # conventionally, before dispatching
             # inputs to the engine, we validate them
             # if val_inp=True. However, in this case
@@ -235,18 +237,21 @@ def run(self, inp: NLEngineInputs, **kwargs) -> NLEngineOutputs:
             )
 
         # logits should be stacked along batch dim
-        # kv_cache_state should be a list where each dim 0 is batch_size
+        # kv_cache_state should be a list where each item has dim 0 as batch_size
         logits, *kv_cache_state = out
-        kv_cache_state, _ = split_engine_inputs(kv_cache_state, 1)
 
-        if len(kv_cache_state) > 0:
+        if not internal_kv_cache_present:
+            # split along batch sizes; will give a list of lists where number of lists
+            # is equal to batch_size
+            kv_cache_state, _ = split_engine_inputs(kv_cache_state, 1)
             for i in range(len(kv_cache)):
+                # pass in a list and kv_cache object per _update_kv_cache call
                 self._update_kv_cache(
                     kv_cache_state=kv_cache_state[i], kv_cache=kv_cache[i]
                 )
         else:
-            # internal kv cache case
-            self._update_kv_cache(kv_cache=kv_cache[0])
+            for i in range(len(kv_cache)):
+                self._update_kv_cache(kv_cache=kv_cache[i])
 
         output = {
             "engine_outputs": logits,