p50 Latency

P50 latency, also known as median latency, represents the response time where 50% of requests are served faster than this value. As highlighted in Hamming AI's analytics guide, p50 provides the typical average user experience and is more reliable than mean averages which can be skewed by outliers. For voice agents, p50 latency encompasses the complete processing pipeline from speech input to audio output. This metric is critical for understanding what most users experience during normal operations.

P50 latency directly correlates with user satisfaction and task completion rates. Hamming AI's research shows that monitoring p50 alongside p90 and p99 provides a complete picture of system performance. While averages can hide performance issues (a 500ms average might mask 20% of users experiencing 3+ second delays), p50 gives the true 'typical' experience. Voice agents with p50 latency under 800ms maintain natural conversation flow, while those exceeding 1 second see increased user frustration and call abandonment.

P50 latency is calculated by collecting all response times over a time window, sorting them, and finding the middle value. For voice agents, this includes: STT processing time, LLM inference duration, TTS generation, and network round-trips. Modern monitoring systems calculate p50 in real-time using algorithms like t-digest or HDR histograms that can handle millions of data points efficiently.

Organizations implementing p50 Latency frequently encounter challenges with measurement accuracy, inconsistent performance across different network conditions, and difficulty achieving target benchmarks. High p50 Latency often results from inadequate infrastructure, unoptimized models, or poor network connectivity. Automated testing and monitoring can help identify these issues before they impact production callers.

Implement p50 tracking using time-series databases like Prometheus or InfluxDB. Set up dashboards that display p50 alongside p90 and p99 for complete visibility. Configure alerts when p50 exceeds 800ms for more than 5 minutes. Use Hamming AI's recommendation to track percentiles rather than averages for accurate performance assessment. Source: https://hamming.ai/blog/anatomy-of-a-perfect-voice-agent-analytics-dashboard