Awaiting AE Recommendation to Awaiting AE Assignment Paper just went to this after review. Any idea what this means in terms of the paper's status at this point?
Odds are this means the AE changed. This could be because the original AE declined the assignment, resigned from the editorial board, is too busy to make a decision, and so on.

See also this question: Manuscript status changed from “Reviews completed” to “Editor assigned”