AI Mixtape | The Token Economy: Why Your AI Gets Dumb at 3pm

You're paying $20 a month and suddenly your AI is cutting you off mid-afternoon. You're not imagining it. In March 2026, Anthropic and Google quietly changed how many tokens you get — no press release, no announcement. In this episode Katie Branley and Dr. Ericka Pitman break down what a token actually is, why the era of unlimited AI is ending, and four rules you can use right now to make your plan go further.What's Inside:What Is a Token — The unit of AI computation explained in plain language, and why your $20 plan is not as unlimited as you thoughtWhy Limits Changed — How usage shifted from simple chat to multi-page documents, agents, and workflows — and why the big AI companies quietly hit the brakes in March 2026Track Your Usage — How to find Claude's gas gauge in your settings and what Gemini is suspiciously not showing youThe Off-Peak Advantage — Why your tokens burn faster between 8am and 2pm Eastern and how to schedule your heavy AI work around itRight Model for the Job — Opus vs. Sonnet vs. Haiku, and why you don't need a sports car to pick up groceriesStart Fresh — Why that giant running chat is costing you thousands of tokens every time you ask a new question, and the smarter way to workThis Week's Mixtape Rules:Check your usage gauge in Claude settings — know your tank levelSchedule heavy AI work outside peak hours, after 2pm or before 8am EasternMatch the model to the task — save Opus for the hard stuffStart a new chat instead of letting one conversation run foreverWant to Work With Us? If you are ready to bring AI into your work or your organization in a way that actually makes sense, we would love to talk. Visit us at empoweredailearning.com to learn more about our courses, workshops, and consulting. Subscribe to our Substack for weekly AI insights between episodes.Website: empoweredailearning.com Substack: empoweredai.substack.comConnect With Us: Have a question, a topic you want us to cover, or an AI win you want to share? Reach out — we want to hear from you.Contact: [email protected] Mixtape — where you understand the AI, and you stay human.