What makes streaming useful beyond perceived speed?

Example Answer

The way I'd think about it is this: Streaming helps not just because users see something faster, but because it changes how the product can communicate progress, uncertainty, and control. A well-designed streamed experience can show that work has started, surface partial structure, and make long responses feel more predictable.

It also creates product options. You can stream high-confidence scaffolding first, interleave status updates for tool use, or let users interrupt and redirect before the full response is done.

But streaming only helps if the early tokens are meaningful. If the system streams filler while the real work is still blocked, users still experience lag.

What matters in an interview is not only knowing the definition, but being able to connect it back to how it changes modeling, evaluation, or deployment decisions in practice.

Common Poor Answer

A weak answer is saying streaming is mainly a UX trick. It can be a real workflow tool when it conveys useful progress or control.