Opinion: Speed matters more than smarts for AI agents
maddie-lovelace · reddit · 2026-08-24
The author argues that when building AI agents, there is a trade-off: the model must be smart enough to function, but once that threshold is crossed, speed becomes critical. Long iteration times kill the user experience.
The suggested sweet spot is around 500 tps prefill and 25 tps decode. If the hardware can't sustain this, the author prefers running a slightly dumber but faster model.
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