diff --git a/CHANGES.md b/CHANGES.md
index 6dd8504db794..916fc4f26f39 100644
--- a/CHANGES.md
+++ b/CHANGES.md
@@ -76,6 +76,7 @@
 ## New Features / Improvements
 
 * X feature added (Java/Python) ([#X](https://github.com/apache/beam/issues/X)).
+* [Python] Prism runner now auto-enabled for some Python pipelines using the direct runner ([#34921](https://github.com/apache/beam/pull/34921)).
 * [YAML] WriteToTFRecord and ReadFromTFRecord Beam YAML support
 
 ## Breaking Changes
diff --git a/sdks/python/apache_beam/runners/direct/direct_runner.py b/sdks/python/apache_beam/runners/direct/direct_runner.py
index 8b8937653688..1df2e88f6140 100644
--- a/sdks/python/apache_beam/runners/direct/direct_runner.py
+++ b/sdks/python/apache_beam/runners/direct/direct_runner.py
@@ -167,7 +167,8 @@ def visit_transform(self, applied_ptransform):
         pr = runner.run_pipeline(pipeline, options)
         # This is non-blocking, so if the state is *already* finished, something
         # probably failed on job submission.
-        if pr.state.is_terminal() and pr.state != PipelineState.DONE:
+        if (PipelineState.is_terminal(pr.state) and
+            pr.state != PipelineState.DONE):
           _LOGGER.info(
               'Pipeline failed on PrismRunner, falling back toDirectRunner.')
           runner = BundleBasedDirectRunner()