# Stop counting tokens, start counting what ships

**Published:** November 2, 2026
**Author:** Affan Syed
**Source:** MIT Technology Review
**Language:** en-US
**HTML:** https://aiqazaqstan.com/en/articles/stop-counting-tokens-start-counting-what-ships

When a developer gives an AI agent a coding task, the agent does more than answer once. It plans, generates code, runs tests, and repeats the process to correct errors. A single task can use 10 to 50 times more tokens than a basic chat prompt. The more useful the agent becomes,…

> From the original source: **MIT Technology Review**
> [Read full article at MIT Technology Review](https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/11/02/1147702/stop-counting-tokens-start-counting-what-ships/)

**Tags:** #Anthropic #Microsoft

---

*AI Qazaqstan — non-commercial informational portal about AI in Kazakhstan. Machine translations and summaries are AI-generated.*