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Latency

Infrastructure

LAY-ten-see

2/5 · Getting there

The delay between asking an AI something and getting the answer back.

Lesson #3: Under the Hood: Models, Meaning & Speed
Think of it like…

The pause between flipping a switch and the light actually coming on.

Everyday example

A voice assistant taking two seconds to answer instead of one.

Construction example

A field app that stalls when checking specs on a weak signal.

Business example

A chat widget losing customers because replies take eight seconds.

Why this matters

Slow AI gets abandoned — speed often matters more to users than a slightly smarter answer.

One-sentence summary

Latency is the wait time between question and answer.

Try it yourself

Time how long your most-used AI tool takes to answer. Anything over 5s hurts.

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