Forum Debates Whether Token-Based AI Services Create Economic Value
AIbase AI News reported that CITIC Publishing Group and Tencent Research Institute held a forum on October 26 on the economics of treating machine intelligence as a metered service. Participants disagreed on Token pricing and value, noting that China’s reported daily Token calls rose from about 100 billion in early 2024 to 500 trillion in June 2026 while unit prices fell and total bills increased. Tencent WorkBuddy customer-success leader Zhang Wenzhao also presented enterprise use cases and a strategy of matching more expensive models to higher-value tasks.
The forum connected Token usage and pricing with concrete enterprise cases, but its speakers offered competing views and did not reach a final conclusion on whether Token-based AI services are economically sustainable.
——一个计量单位的变化，正在改写成本、定价与组织的基本假设
当智力的产出第一次可以被计量、比价和交易，经济学会遇到什么?10月26日下午，中信出版集团与腾讯研究院举办《Token经济——当智力成为一种可计量的服务》交流论坛。来自经济学界、研究机构与产业一线的嘉宾，给出了并不一致的答案。
据国家数据局数据，中国日均 Token 调用量从2024年初的约1000亿增长至2026年6月的500万亿，两年增长超过数千倍。而实际应用中，“单价越来越便宜”与“账单越来越贵”两种现象同时出现，构成贯穿全场讨论的核心张力。
Token，一个计量单位的出现
《Token经济》作者之一、腾讯研究院高级研究员白惠天把 Token 视为理解这个时代的切口:它代表一次度量单位的变化——既是大模型处理信息的最小单元，也是产品与服务计费的最小单位。就像蒲式耳、桶、千瓦时分别用来计量粮食、石油与电力，Token 是第一个用于计量机器智力产出的单位。
#Tencent Research Institute#CITIC Publishing Group#Tencent WorkBuddy