So some Gemini prompts use way more power than this: Dean offers the instance of feeding dozens of books into Gemini and asking it to provide an in depth synopsis of their content material. “That’s the form of factor that can in all probability take extra power than the median immediate,” Dean says. Utilizing a reasoning mannequin may even have a better related power 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 Know-how Evaluate’s Energy Hungry sequence earlier this 12 months, present that these duties can require way more power.)
The report additionally finds that the overall power used to discipline a Gemini question has fallen dramatically over time. The median Gemini immediate used 33 instances extra power in Could 2024 than it did in Could 2025, based on Google. The corporate factors to developments in its fashions and different software program optimizations for the enhancements.
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 overall power used to reply to a immediate by the common emissions per unit of electrical energy.
Reasonably than utilizing an emissions estimate primarily based on the US grid common, or the common 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 power 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 common grid the place it operates.
AI information facilities additionally eat water for cooling, and Google estimates that every immediate consumes 0.26 milliliters of water, or about 5 drops.
The objective of this work was to offer customers a window into the power 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 power 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 truly equal to stuff you do with out even occupied with it each day,” he says, “like watching a couple of seconds of TV or consuming 5 drops of water.”
