Voice Agent Latency Optimization

The delay a caller experiences includes more than the speech model's processing time. ElevenLabs' latency guide measures the interval from the user finishing speech to hearing the first reply. That includes deciding the turn has ended, preparing the answer and buffering playback.

The guide describes overlapping work: synthesize a completed sentence while the language model writes the next one. It also identifies a tradeoff in silence detection: shortening the wait can make replies quicker but cut off natural pauses. These are tuning mechanisms; the guide's example timing budget is illustrative.