Improving Inference Latency: Guide and best practices

Inference latency is the single most visible performance metric in modern AI systems. It is the delay between when a user or system sends a request to an AI model and when a useful response (or the first token, in streaming) is returned, and it directly shapes user experience, cost, and scalability. When inference latency is high or unpredictable, applications feel sluggish, resource bills climb, and scaling becomes harder.