Sam Altman calls AI tokens a ‘kind of fake unit’ for measuring business value

OpenAI's CEO says token counts miss what companies actually get from AI, even as customers keep choosing token-based pricing The CEO of the company selling the most famous AI tokens on Earth just told everyone not to take them too seriously. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman described AI tokens as a “kind of fake unit” when it comes to business value. The comments came during a recent podcast appearance on Cheeky Pint alongside John Collison, dated October 31, 2026, in the research findings. What Altman actually said First, a quick primer. In AI, a token is a small chunk of text or data that a model reads or writes. Providers meter usage in tokens and bill accordingly, much like a utility meters electricity in kilowatt-hours. Altman’s argument is that the meter and the value are two different things. A token count tells a business how much computation happened. It does not tell that business what it got out of the exchange. Altman did not dismiss tokens entirely. He acknowledged they are technically valid. He also suggested token counts may approach the minimum amount needed to carry information once models strip out waste. According to Altman, many customers would rather have stable, predicta...