Visible tradeoffsThis is an efficiency signal, so it belongs beside quality rather than being mistaken for quality.
source
Artificial Analysis
metric
First answer token (s)
judge
Speed / cost
direction
lower better
group id
aa_time_to_first_answer_current
domain
Chat / text
What it measures vs what it misses
✓ Measures
Visible response wait time for models that may emit reasoning tokens first.
✗ Misses
Output quality and total completion time.
Why this countsIt tests whether the model is actually useful in normal conversational turns, not just on narrow correctness tasks.Same-test ruleThis percentile only compares models inside the exact benchmark/version group shown here. It is not a universal score.What it missesIt does not prove deeper reasoning, tool use, or enterprise workflow reliability.