Learn how to stream responses from OpenAI in real time and implement it using Java. Deliver faster, interactive AI user experiences with Spring Boot or backend APIs.
📌 Part of the 30 Days of AI + Java Tips — daily concepts to build smarter, smoother AI apps.
By default, when you call an AI API like OpenAI’s chat/completions, the entire response is returned only after it’s fully generated.
That works fine for small messages — but for longer outputs, this delay:
- Hurts user experience
- Feels sluggish and slow
- Breaks “conversation-like” flow
🧠 Streaming fixes this.
It lets the model send back data token by token, so your app can show the answer as it’s being typed — just like ChatGPT.
When you pass "stream": true in your API request, OpenAI responds with a server-sent events (SSE) stream.
That means your app receives:
- A series of
data:chunks - Each containing partial output tokens
