Using Google's AI prompt akin to five drops of water or the energy needed to watch 9 seconds of TV

Running a single prompt on Google’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Gemini takes about the same amount of energy as watching 9 seconds of TV, according to a new technical paper.

Google says a text prompt through Gemini uses about 0.24 watt-hours (Wh) of energy, according to a blog post from the company. The energy emitted from using AI is about 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide.

The AI chatbot also consumes 0.26 millilitres of water, or roughly five drops of water per prompt.

The company measured not only the energy and water use of the individual prompt, but also the IT equipment in data centres, the idle power of the chips that power the AI model, and the water used by data centres to cool the equipment being used.  

The company claimed that its energy and water usage for AI is  “substantially lower than many public estimates”.

Data shows emissions are ‘quite small’ per search, Google says

One study by the non-profit Electric Power Research Institute estimated that a prompt issued to OpenAI’s ChatGPT uses 2.9 watt-hours of energy while a traditional search uses about 0.3 watt-hours.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that energy demand will double over the next five years to 945 terawatt hours per year - or the entire electricity consumption of Japan.

Google’s own emissions are up too, by 51 per cent since 2019, according to their latest environmental report. This is largely due to emissions caused by the manufacturing and assembly of hardware needed for AI further down the supply chain.

The company said that other studies about the energy use of AI often measure only machine consumption, which “overlook[s]” some of the other factors that Google used in their metrics, meaning their numbers represent “theoretical efficiency instead of true operating efficiency at scale,” the blog post said.

Google claims that its AI models are also becoming more efficient, with energy use and carbon footprint numbers per prompt dropping by 33 times and 44 times since August 2024.

One of the study’s shortfalls is that it does not reveal the total number of queries that Gemini gets every day, which would give a better indication of Gemini’s total energy demand.