Glossary

What is Context window?

The context window is how much text an AI model can take in at once: your question plus everything you add to it.

A model can only hold a limited amount of text 'in mind' at a time, measured in tokens. That is the context window. Paste a very long document and it sometimes will not all fit, and the beginning drops off. If everything fits, the model can connect all the parts to each other.

What this means for you

It explains why an AI sometimes 'forgets' earlier parts in a long conversation or a long document. In that case, cut large texts into pieces.

Related words

Token LLM (language model)Model

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Last reviewed: 19 June 2026.