So some Gemini prompts use far more vitality than this: Dean provides the instance of feeding dozens of books into Gemini and asking it to supply an in depth synopsis of their content material. “That’s the type of factor that may most likely take extra vitality than the median immediate,” Dean says. Utilizing a reasoning mannequin might even have a better related vitality demand as a result of these fashions take extra steps earlier than producing a solution.
This report was additionally strictly restricted to textual content prompts, so it doesn’t signify what’s wanted to generate a picture or a video. (Different analyses, together with one in MIT Technology Review’s Power Hungry series earlier this yr, present that these duties can require far more vitality.)
The report additionally finds that the whole vitality used to subject a Gemini question has fallen dramatically over time. The median Gemini immediate used 33 occasions extra vitality in Might 2024 than it did in Might 2025, in line with Google. The corporate factors to developments in its fashions and different software program optimizations for the improvements.
Google additionally estimates the greenhouse fuel emissions related to the median immediate, which they put at 0.03 grams of carbon dioxide. To get to this quantity, the corporate multiplied the whole vitality used to reply to a immediate by the typical emissions per unit of electrical energy.
Moderately than utilizing an emissions estimate primarily based on the US grid common, or the typical of the grids the place Google operates, the corporate as a substitute makes use of a market-based estimate, which takes into consideration electrical energy purchases that the corporate makes from clear vitality initiatives. The corporate has signed agreements to purchase over 22 gigawatts of energy from sources together with photo voltaic, wind, geothermal, and superior nuclear initiatives since 2010. Due to these purchases, Google’s emissions per unit of electrical energy on paper are roughly one-third of these on the typical grid the place it operates.
AI knowledge facilities additionally eat water for cooling, and Google estimates that every immediate consumes 0.26 milliliters of water, or about 5 drops.
The purpose of this work was to supply customers a window into the vitality use of their interactions with AI, Dean says.
“Individuals are utilizing [AI tools] for all types of issues, they usually shouldn’t have main issues concerning the vitality utilization or the water utilization of Gemini fashions, as a result of in our precise measurements, what we had been capable of present was that it’s really equal to belongings you do with out even fascinated by it each day,” he says, “like watching a couple of seconds of TV or consuming 5 drops of water.”
