What it is

A token is a chunk of text that an AI model processes. It's not exactly a word. Sometimes it's a whole word, sometimes part of a word, sometimes just a space or punctuation mark. The word "unhappiness" might be three tokens: "un", "happi", "ness". Why should you care? Because AI companies charge by the token, and models have token limits on how much text they can handle at once. It's basically the unit of measurement for AI text processing.

Why it matters for your job

Tokens determine what AI costs and what it can do in a single go. If you're using AI tools at work, understanding tokens helps you use them more efficiently and avoid hitting limits mid-task. It also helps you understand why AI sometimes "forgets" the beginning of a long conversation. It ran out of token space. This is practical knowledge that most of your colleagues won't have.

What to do about it

When using AI tools, be concise with your inputs. Long, rambling prompts waste tokens and money. Learn the token limits of whatever tool you're using so you know when to break a task into smaller pieces.