Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Elhaimeur, Iizalaarab, Chrisochoides, Nikos
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24110
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913064646868992
author Elhaimeur, Iizalaarab
Chrisochoides, Nikos
author_facet Elhaimeur, Iizalaarab
Chrisochoides, Nikos
contents Multi-agent LLM tutoring systems improve response quality through agent specialization, but each student query triggers several concurrent API calls whose latencies compound through a parallel-phase maximum effect that single-agent systems do not face. We instrument ITAS, a four-agent tutoring system built on Gemini 2.5 Flash and Google Vertex AI, across three throughput tiers (Standard PayGo, Priority PayGo, and Provisioned Throughput) and eleven concurrency levels up to 50 simultaneous users, producing over 3,000 requests drawn from a live graduate STEM deployment. Priority PayGo maintains flat sub-4-second response times across the full load range; Standard PayGo degrades substantially under classroom-scale concurrency; and Provisioned Throughput delivers the lowest latency at low concurrency but saturates its reserved capacity above approximately 20 concurrent users. Cost analysis places both pay-per-token tiers well below the price of a STEM textbook per student per semester under a worst-case usage ceiling. Provisioned Throughput, expensive under continuous provisioning, becomes cost-competitive for institutions that can predict and concentrate their traffic toward high utilization. These results provide concrete tier-selection guidance across deployment scales from a single seminar to a university-wide rollout.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_24110
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Latency and Cost of Multi-Agent Intelligent Tutoring at Scale
Elhaimeur, Iizalaarab
Chrisochoides, Nikos
Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Machine Learning
C.4; I.2.7; K.3.1
Multi-agent LLM tutoring systems improve response quality through agent specialization, but each student query triggers several concurrent API calls whose latencies compound through a parallel-phase maximum effect that single-agent systems do not face. We instrument ITAS, a four-agent tutoring system built on Gemini 2.5 Flash and Google Vertex AI, across three throughput tiers (Standard PayGo, Priority PayGo, and Provisioned Throughput) and eleven concurrency levels up to 50 simultaneous users, producing over 3,000 requests drawn from a live graduate STEM deployment. Priority PayGo maintains flat sub-4-second response times across the full load range; Standard PayGo degrades substantially under classroom-scale concurrency; and Provisioned Throughput delivers the lowest latency at low concurrency but saturates its reserved capacity above approximately 20 concurrent users. Cost analysis places both pay-per-token tiers well below the price of a STEM textbook per student per semester under a worst-case usage ceiling. Provisioned Throughput, expensive under continuous provisioning, becomes cost-competitive for institutions that can predict and concentrate their traffic toward high utilization. These results provide concrete tier-selection guidance across deployment scales from a single seminar to a university-wide rollout.
title Latency and Cost of Multi-Agent Intelligent Tutoring at Scale
topic Computers and Society
Artificial Intelligence
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Machine Learning
C.4; I.2.7; K.3.1
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24110