What is a token in AI and why does it matter?
A token is a small chunk of text, often a word, part of a word or punctuation mark, that a model reads and writes. It matters because limits and API costs are measured in tokens.
Rough idea: a short sentence is a handful of tokens and a page of text is hundreds. Exact counts differ between models, and providers usually offer a tokenizer tool or a token counter in their documentation.
Why you care:
- The context window caps how many tokens the model can handle at once, including your messages, its replies and attachments.
- API pricing is usually per token for input and output.
- Long chats cost more and can degrade quality.
Shorter prompts and fresh chats save tokens.
Related answers
Are AI-written phishing emails harder to spot, and what should I look for now?
Yes, AI can write clean, convincing phishing emails without the spelling mistakes people used to rely on, so judge the request and the sender, not the grammar.
privacy-safety
Can AI analyze my Excel or CSV data and can I trust the results?
Often yes, especially with assistants that can run code on uploaded files, but you should verify the results.
accuracy
Can an AI assistant be tricked by hidden instructions in emails or web pages?
Yes. If an assistant reads emails, web pages or documents, hidden text in them can try to give it new instructions, which is called prompt injection.
privacy-safety