is this claim substantiated? preprocessing queries into AST greatly improves load time

[iambumblehead]

https://github.com/apollographql/graphql-tag#preprocessing-queries-and-fragments

what circumstances would see the most benefit from preprocessing to AST? what circumstances would see the least benefit? Assuming an app uses a non-trivial number and type of queries, what impact do AST-bundled queries have on the size of the javascript payload?