Phonic v1 vs Cascade

Phonic v1 is more reliable, by 7.3 points. Phonic v1 passed 74 of 82 scenarios on all three runs, and Cascade passed 68. A scenario only counts when every run of it passed.

On reliability, yes: Phonic v1 passes more scenarios on every run than the cascade. Phonic v1 is ahead on reliability, success rate, data accuracy, calls where the agent went quiet and response time, and Cascade on agent responses and interruption. Both ran as the same agent, with the same prompt and tools.

Phonic v1, by 3.4 points. Phonic v1 saved everything exactly right on 97.5% of the calls that save data, and Cascade on 94.1%. On Booking calls, 100.0% against 98.8%. On Medicare calls, 90.9% against 81.8%. A call counts only when nothing is missing, wrong, extra or saved twice.

Yes. Phonic v1 starts replying 0.54s sooner at the median. Phonic v1 takes 1.63s at the median and 1.81s at p90; Cascade takes 2.17s and 2.51s. Both are measured on the call audio, from the caller finishing to the agent starting to reply.

Cascade, by 0.08 on a 0 to 5 scale. Phonic v1 scores 4.88 and Cascade 4.96 for how well the agent handled being talked over.

Phonic v1, by 0.8 points. The agent went quiet for 10 seconds or more on 0.0% of Phonic v1 calls and 0.8% of Cascade calls.

There is no verified per-minute rate for Cascade, so cost cannot be compared yet.

Cekura ran both as the whole agent in the same open-source Pipecat pipeline, with the same prompt, tools and connection. A simulated caller worked through all 82 scenarios on live calls, three times each, 3,690 calls across the benchmark. A call passes only when the agent said the right things and saved the right data. The cascade runs the same agent for reference and is never ranked.