Fact · Voice and AI
Artificial Analysis defines time to first token for language model APIs as the number of seconds between sending a request and receiving the first token of the response. This is the delay a user waits before any words of a reply appear.
Checked against its source on October 17, 2026
In the source's own words
“The time in seconds between sending a request to the service or system and receiving the first token of the response.”
Language Model API Performance Benchmarking Methodology (Artificial Analysis), Artificial Analysis, Artificial Analysis, 2026, Key Definitions: Time to First Token.
Open the original- What it measures
- The same methodology page says time to first token is sensitive to server location because it includes network latency, and that its own test server is in Google Cloud's us-central1-a zone.
- What it does not show
- The page defines the term and describes its method. It does not give a single typical value, and the figures change with the model, the provider, the prompt length and the load on the service.