This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Sashikumar Yadav
If you’ve ever played around with ChatGPT or any large language model, you might’ve heard the word “token” thrown around — usually when someone talks about limits or pricing. But what exactly are tokens?
Think of tokens as the smallest pieces of text an AI understands. They’re not always full words — sometimes just parts of them.
For example:
“ChatGPT is awesome!”
might be broken down into tokens like: Chat, G, PT, is, awesome!
The model doesn’t actually “see” sentences the way we do. It sees a long chain of these tokens and tries to predict what comes next — that’s how it builds responses.
Why does it matter? Because:
- Tokens decide how long your input or output can be (there’s always a token limit).
- Tokens also determine cost — AI tools charge based on how many tokens you use.
- And finally, they define context — the more tokens the model can process, the more it can “remember” in a conversation.
In short, tokens are like the currency of understanding in the AI world. Every question, answer, and word you type is made up of them.
Fun fact: the latest GPT models can handle over 128,000 tokens at once — roughly the length of a full novel. Imagine an AI reading an entire book and still remembering every detail — that’s the power of tokens.
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Sashikumar Yadav
Sashikumar Yadav | Sciencx (2025-10-23T22:24:24+00:00) What Are Tokens in GPT. Retrieved from https://www.scien.cx/2025/10/23/what-are-tokens-in-gpt/
Please log in to upload a file.
There are no updates yet.
Click the Upload button above to add an update.