Speed Is the Product: OpenAI and Google Sell Faster AI
Carlos Martínez 7 min read
Executive summary
- The new battleground: OpenAI and Google have made latency their core product, releasing models that prioritize processing speed over raw intelligence gains.
- Unprecedented metrics: OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol Ultrafast hits up to 750 output tokens per second, running 14 times faster than standard processing.
- Enterprise impact: Brands can now deploy autonomous agents in real-time workflows—like live voice support and complex checkout operations—without the conversion-killing delays of traditional AI.
Table of contents
Think about the last time you deployed an AI chatbot for your e-commerce site. You know the drill. A customer asks a complex question about inventory, and the screen just… hangs. The typing indicator blinks. Seconds pass. Your customer leaves.
Here is where most get it wrong: we have spent the last three years obsessing over how “smart” AI models are. We chased reasoning, parameter counts, and benchmark scores. But pure intelligence doesn’t pay the bills if it arrives too late. The real bottleneck for your team isn’t capability. It is latency.
PYMNTS recently hit the nail on the head: speed itself has become the product.
The myth of the “smarter” model
It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking you always need the biggest, most complex AI to run your business. That is a myth.
What you actually need is a model that delivers a sufficiently brilliant answer fast enough to keep your workflow moving. If your autonomous agents take 10 seconds to check inventory, cross-reference pricing, and formulate a reply, the automation fails.
OpenAI just shattered this compromise. Their new “Ultrafast” tier for GPT-5.6 Sol, powered by specialty chips from Cerebras, runs up to 14 times faster than standard processing. Google countered on the exact same day with Gemini 3.7 Flash, explicitly calling it their “most intelligent workhorse model yet for coding and agents,” while slashing the price to $0.75 per million input tokens.
They aren’t just selling AI anymore. They are selling time.
750 output tokens per second — The unprecedented speed reached by OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol in its new Ultrafast mode, eliminating the traditional trade-off between model intelligence and latency. Source: PYMNTS 2026
This changes the economics of how you deploy AI. If you are a CTO or a brand manager, this means your internal OpenAI workspace agents — which signal the end of ChatGPT as a simple chatbot — can now operate in real-time. Incident response, financial research, and dynamic pricing adjustments can happen in the blink of an eye. Early adopters like Jane Street and Podium are already using these ultrafast pipelines to analyze live market signals and handle complex voice support without breaking the conversation.
Why milliseconds dictate your margins
Imagine your checkout process. If you want to integrate a Google Universal Cart, where AI becomes the shopper who controls the sale, that AI agent needs to make instantaneous decisions. If it pauses to “think,” the transaction drops.
When AI systems take over autonomous workflows, latency compounds. A multi-step task that requires the AI to check a database, read a log, and output a result used to take a minute. Now, it takes four seconds. You get more iterations per hour. Your team stops waiting.
Competitors moving faster than you aren’t necessarily using smarter prompts. They are simply using infrastructure that processes data at a fraction of the cost and time.
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Epinium data: We estimate that reducing AI response latency by just 3 seconds in customer-facing retail applications increases automated checkout completion rates by up to 28%.
Stop waiting, start routing
You don’t need a massive infrastructure overhaul to take advantage of this. The shift toward ultra-fast AI means you should be looking at model routing.
Send your heavy, asynchronous background tasks to standard, cheaper tiers. Send your live, customer-facing, interactive agents to Ultrafast or Gemini 3.7 Flash. You optimize for cost where it doesn’t matter, and you optimize for speed where it directly impacts the user experience.
The era of the slow, thinking chatbot is over. Speed is now a measurable part of the value you deliver. The only question is whether your brand is ready to keep up.
What is OpenAI’s Ultrafast tier?
It is a new API service tier designed to run OpenAI’s flagship models, like GPT-5.6 Sol, at extreme speeds without compromising their reasoning capabilities. It targets enterprise use cases where real-time responses are critical.
How fast is GPT-5.6 Sol Ultrafast?
Powered by Cerebras infrastructure, the Ultrafast mode can generate up to 750 output tokens per second. This makes it up to 14 times faster than OpenAI’s standard processing mode.
What is Google Gemini 3.7 Flash?
Gemini 3.7 Flash is Google’s latest model optimized for coding and autonomous agents. It focuses on high speed and low cost, priced at $0.75 per million input tokens, making it ideal for multi-step AI workflows.
Why is speed becoming a product in AI?
As AI moves from simple chat interfaces to autonomous, multi-step agents handling commerce and customer support, latency directly impacts performance. A faster model prevents workflow bottlenecks and abandoned transactions.
How does faster AI affect my brand’s operations?
Lower latency allows your AI agents to resolve complex customer issues, check inventory, and execute tasks instantly. This means higher conversion rates, reduced wait times, and a more efficient deployment of your technical resources.
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