Cascade vs Voice-to-Voice: Why Your AI Agent Architecture Determines Everything in 2026
Voice AI ArchitectureCascade ArchitectureVoice to VoiceAI LatencyTTGEVoice Agent Design
Cascade architecture (STT→LLM→TTS) adds 800-1200ms of latency per turn. Native voice-to-voice processes audio end-to-end in under 200ms. This difference is not cosmetic — it determines whether prospects hang up, whether customers feel heard, and whether your AI agent passes as human.