Generative AI & language models
Token
Definition
A small piece of text—a word or part of a word—that a language model reads and generates.
Visual example
Chopped ingredient = token
The kitchen connection
Think of a chopped ingredient.
The illustration connects the AI idea to something familiar. Follow the subject, the action, and the result to see how it works.
- 01 · Who or what
- Chopped ingredient = token
- 02 · What happens
- Breaks language into small pieces
- 03 · The result
- Helps the model read text
Why it matters
It helps explain model limits, speed, context size, and usage cost.