How long does the entire RAG pipeline from request to response usually take?

The execution time of the RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipeline from query to response depends on several factors: the speed of retrieving relevant documents, the processing time of the generation model, and network delays.

In real projects, this usually takes from a few hundred milliseconds to several seconds. For example, searching the index may take 100-300 ms, and generating a response — from 500 ms to 2 seconds depending on the model and hardware.

Optimization includes caching, reducing context size, using faster models, and asynchronous processing.