Latency: The Make-or-Break Constraint
Everything about voice AI comes down to one number: how long the user waits to hear a reply. Get it under the threshold where conversation feels natural and the agent is a delight; miss it and no amount of intelligence saves the experience. This post is about the latency budget — where the milliseconds go, and how streaming the entire pipeline turns an additive delay into something that feels instant.
Everything about voice AI comes down to one number: how long the user waits to hear a reply. Get it under the threshold where conversation feels natural and the agent is a delight; miss it and no intelligence saves the experience. The latency budget — where the milliseconds go, and how streaming the entire pipeline turns an additive delay into something that feels instant. With an interactive turn diagram.