Someone at work says they're worried about token burn, and the whole room nods. Here's what a token is, why the meter keeps running, and why AI agents get through tokens so fast.
Tokens are the paper. The context window is the desk. And the model reads the desk again, every time it's called.
Part of "Explained: the words you nod along to". The longer version, with all six AI doing words, is Ep.06.2: [link]
Design, direction and script: Stephen Callaghan
Script adapted from my Ep.06.2 article, with Claude
Voice: AI clone of my own voice (ElevenLabs Professional Voice Cloning)
Animation: built with Claude Code
Sources: OpenAI, "Understanding and counting tokens"; AI providers' API pricing pages (October 2026).
#AI #AITokens #AIAgents