Topics / real-time voice AI latency budget

Attributed viewpoint

One-second turn deadline

A production voice agent must begin speaking within about one second of the user's utterance ending, or the exchange feels broken.

Behind the viewpoint

Translations are for reading; original excerpts remain the evidence.

Real-Time Voice AI Stack for Agents: Architecture Guide

Original excerpt

It has about a second to start talking before the exchange feels broken.
Context

A production voice agent chains transport, speech recognition, a language model, speech synthesis, and orchestration into a single real-time exchange, and each layer draws from the same shared clock.