Fundamentals
Token
The basic unit of text an AI model reads and writes. Models do not see words or characters, they see tokens: chunks of roughly four characters, or about three quarters of a word in English.
In practice
The sentence "Tracking AI costs is easy" is about 6 tokens. Billing is per token, so tokens are the thing you actually pay for.
Related terms
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Image: Google DeepMind on Pexels. Definition free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.