How to Lower Transcription Latency in Voice AI Systems: Practical Tips
Dev.to AI
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Generative AI
How to Lower Transcription Latency in Voice AI Systems: Practical Tips TL;DR Most voice AI systems hit 200-800ms transcription latency because they batch audio chunks instead of streaming. VAPI's streaming STT with partial transcripts cuts this to 80-150ms. Use Twilio's WebSocket connection for raw PCM audio (not compressed), enable early partial results, and implement barge-in detection on interim transcripts - not finals. This cuts time-to-first-token by 60% and prevents awkward silence gaps in real-time conversations.