diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 31bc1b00..6b4d96f7 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ classifiers = [
 
 
 [tool.poetry.dependencies]
-python = "^3.8"
+python = "^3.8.1"
 torch = "2.1.1"
 transformers = "4.37.1"
 openai = "0.28.0"
diff --git a/swarms/models/openai_models.py b/swarms/models/openai_models.py
index b1aa0117..a0ad35a3 100644
--- a/swarms/models/openai_models.py
+++ b/swarms/models/openai_models.py
@@ -1155,17 +1155,6 @@ class OpenAIChat(BaseLLM):
 
     def get_token_ids(self, text: str) -> List[int]:
         """Get the token IDs using the tiktoken package."""
-        # tiktoken NOT supported for Python < 3.8
-        if sys.version_info[1] < 8:
-            return super().get_token_ids(text)
-        try:
-            import tiktoken
-        except ImportError:
-            raise ImportError(
-                "Could not import tiktoken python package. This is"
-                " needed in order to calculate get_num_tokens. Please"
-                " install it with `pip install tiktoken`."
-            )
 
         enc = tiktoken.encoding_for_model(self.model_name)
         return enc.encode(