Links have been the currency of the internet since forever.

AI changes that - no links - no webpages - just a genie that pops up and gives you the answer.

What's the new currency of the AI Web?

Truthfully, I don't know.

It might be tokens.

I think you are spot on in that it is still tokens Ryan. 

AI may still provide you an answer to your questions but if it is a closed loop large language model (LLM), meaning that it has a collection of data that has been aggregated to one place, it cannot provide you with the latest information. 

This is why it is important to distinguish the difference in how AI software is implemented. The standard ChatGPT 3.5 is closed loop architecture and uses the information it has based on when the last bit of data that was uploaded to it.

However if you use Copilot it uses an open loop structure and finds links from the internet prior and uses those uniform resource locators (URLs) to providing you with an answer based on that information. 

I am not sure how it will be implemented in the future but my guess is that in order to access certain pieces of information you will need to utilize tokens in some way.