In the rapidly evolving landscape of LLM-powered applications, smooth experience is key as users’ attention spans are diminishing, and tolerance for delays is below zero. In this context, the quest for real-time, dynamic interactions has led developers to embrace streaming as a core part of almost any fully functional application. If you’re building a product coupled with the OpenAI API, read on to learn more about integrating efficient AI capabilities and keeping UX top-notch through implementing streaming.
What is Streaming?
Streaming is not just a feature; it's a catalyst for unlocking real-time possibilities. It facilitates dynamic exchanges between developers and the OpenAI API, allowing responses to be received incrementally as data becomes available. This real-time interaction introduces a level of flexibility and responsiveness that is indispensable in scenarios where standard request-response mechanisms fall short. If you’re aiming to build an LLM-powered application with real-time experience, then Streaming is a mandatory feature for success.
Why is real-time experience important in LLM apps?
If a developer chooses not to use streaming in their LLM-powered chatbot, for example, they would typically rely on standard request-response mechanisms when interacting with the OpenAI API. What would that mean for the end users? It might be a throbber that just never disappears and makes your app look broken, or blank screens and users hitting “refresh” or directly the “exit” button. What could be worse than that?!
Here is a table we’ve prepared of common use cases, where real-time experience is a must and what happens if you fail or omit implementing it:
Streaming VS Standard Request-Response
|
Streaming |
Standard Request-Response |
Conversational Interfaces |
Imagine building chatbots and conversational interfaces that respond instantly to user input, creating a seamless and natural conversational flow. Streaming makes this possible, enhancing the user experience |
Responses may be delivered only after the entire request has been processed, potentially leading to delays in the conversation. Users might experience a less natural flow due to the wait for complete responses and log out or delete your app. |
Live Transcriptions |
In applications like transcription services or live captioning, where time is of the essence, streaming shines by providing immediate results as audio or speech input is processed. This is particularly beneficial in fast-paced live event scenarios. |
Results will be provided only after the entire audio or speech input has been processed. This delay could be impractical in scenarios where immediate transcriptions are crucial, especially in live events. This would mean your application would not be solving the users’ needs and is not fit for the task at hand. |
Interactive Gaming |
For game developers seeking dynamic and real-time AI-generated content, streaming becomes the linchpin. It ensures the seamless integration of AI-driven elements, elevating the gaming experience to new heights. |
AI-generated content would be delivered in its entirety after processing, potentially causing disruptions in the real-time nature of interactive games. This delay could impact the seamless integration of AI-driven elements. UI/UX would suffer leading to diminished usability and poor user feedback. |
On-the-Fly Content Generation |
In the realm of dynamic content creation for websites or marketing materials, streaming is a core functionality. It ensures rapid content delivery, vital for keeping up with the ever-changing digital landscape. |
Content generation would occur in its entirety before being delivered, which may not be suitable for applications requiring rapid on-the-fly updates, such as dynamic content for websites or marketing materials. This might lead users to think while waiting that your app is broken. |
Simultaneous Data Processing |
For tasks demanding the parallel processing of multiple inputs, such as language translation or sentiment analysis for a stream of social media posts, streaming emerges as a key element, enhancing efficiency and reducing latency. |
The processing of multiple inputs would occur sequentially. This might lead to increased latency and reduced efficiency, especially when dealing with large volumes of data. Performance will be seriously hindered, which can make your app unusable. |
How to stream the response using GPTBoost?
Now, I believe you should be already firmly convinced that if you’re building an application with OpenAI API integration aiming to deliver real-time experience, you must implement Streaming. So, in the next few lines, I’ll show you how to do that in a smooth and easy manner.
GPTBoost has a special built-in service called GPTBoost Turbo Proxy that supports OpenAI streaming. All you need to do is simply add stream=True to your request to receive the response in chunks as they're generated. Here is how:
Python
Python
import openai
openai.api_base = "https://turbo.gptboost.io/v1"
openai.api_key = "$OPENAI_API_KEY"
for chunk in openai.ChatCompletion.create(
model='gpt-3.5-turbo',
messages=[{
'role': 'user',
'content': "Tell me an interesting fact about Chile"
}],
stream=True
):
if chunk["choices"][0].delta:
content = chunk["choices"][0].get("delta", {}).get("content")
print(content)
cURL
cURL
curl --request 'https://turbo.gptboost.io/v1/chat/completions' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer $OPENAI_API_KEY' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data '{
"model": "gpt-3.5-turbo",
"messages": [
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Tell me an interesting fact about koalas!"
}
],
"stream": true
}'
NodeJS
NodeJS
// This code is for v4 of the openai package: npmjs.com/package/openai
import OpenAI from 'openai';
const openai = new OpenAI({
apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY,
baseURL: "https://turbo.gptboost.io/v1"
})
async function generateStream(prompt) {
const stream = await openai.chat.completions.create({
model: "gpt-3.5-turbo",
messages: [{"role": "user", "content": prompt}],
stream: true,
});
for await (const part of stream) {
console.log(part.choices[0].delta.content);
}
}
Upgrade your development experience with GPTBoost!
Developing awesome OpenAI applications doesn’t have to be a hassle. It can be done faster and easier with the right tools. Enhance your projects with the power of streaming and take your real-time AI interactions to the next level. We can't wait to see the incredible applications and experiences you build using GPTBoost and Streaming.
Get started today by exploring our documentation and integrating streaming into your OpenAI API requests.
Happy streaming! 🚀✨