What is Streaming in AI Development

Understanding Streaming

Streaming in AI development is the process of processing and sending data incrementally rather than waiting for the entire response:

• Data arrives in chunks (text, audio, etc.) as it's generated
• Reduces perceived latency for users
• Enables real-time interactions with AI systems

The Pump Interface

build-ai solves streaming challenges with the Pump interface from build-ai/stream:

// Example from route.ts - next.js
export async function POST(req: NextRequest) {
  const transcript = await transcribeFormData(formData);
  const agentStream = await runLangAgent(transcript);
  
  return await Pump
    .from(agentStream)
    .filter(shouldChunkBeStreamed)
    .rechunk(ensureFullWords)
    .onChunk(logChunk)
    .drainTo(httpStreamResponse());
}

The Pump provides a fluent API for transforming streams with operations like:

• filter: Remove unwanted chunks
• map: Transform chunks from one format to another
• bundle: Combine small chunks for efficiency
• rechunk: Ensure chunks break at logical points
• drainTo: Deliver processed chunks to the destination

This approach simplifies complex streaming logic while maintaining high performance.