How OpenAI delivers low-latency voice AI at scale

OpenAI rearchitected its WebRTC (web real-time communication, a standard protocol for sending low-latency audio and video between clients and servers) infrastructure to handle voice AI at scale while maintaining natural conversation speed. The team addressed three constraints that conflicted at scale: one-port-per-session media termination, stateful ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment, the process for establishing connections across firewalls) and DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security, encryption for real-time data) session stability, and global routing latency. OpenAI built a new split relay plus transceiver architecture that preserves standard WebRTC behavior for users while changing how data packets are routed internally.