AI’s dirty secret: are your Google searches and ChatGPT prompts harming the planet?

New data reveals the shocking energy footprint used by Googling and prompting ChatGPT, forcing businesses and consumers to confront the climate consequences of their digital habits.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai reveals the introduction of AI-generated answers to online queries in one of the biggest updates to its search engine in 25 years. Picture: Glenn Chapman/AFP

It’s not easy being green, particularly if you’re a company turning to artificial intelligence to boost productivity while appearing climate conscious to demanding investors like Australia’s industry superannuation funds.

New data from RMIT Online and Deloitte Access Economics shows that performing just 20 prompts in an AI model uses the same amount of energy as leaving a microwave running for 3½ hours.

While the sound of a microwave buzzing in a tea room for hours on end would most likely annoy enough employees to spark a change in the workplace, the use of AI and how it affects the environment is harder to define.

And employees also don’t need to be actually typing a prompt in ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or any other AI model to generate a spike in power consumption. Something as simple as a Google search has the same effect after the tech titan launched AI-generated summaries at the top of search results.

RMIT Online chief executive Nic Cola said the study highlights that people and companies need to be more mindful about AI use.

“It’s a tricky situation. Everybody uses Google several times a day – gosh – several hundreds times a day, and those 100 times a day actually have AI Overviews on Google too,” Mr Cola said.

“So what is Google doing for sustainable practices? If that’s going to be their strategy, then how are they going to help that from a climate perspective”.

Data centres, which form AI’s backbone, use billions of litres of water each year to cool their powerful and expensive computers. Google alone uses 16.2 billion litres of water a year to cool its data centre fleet. To put this into context, a standard Olympic-size 50m swimming pool holds 2.5 million litres.

RMIT Online chief executive Nic Cola says 20 prompts in an AI model uses the same amount of energy as leaving a microwave running for 3½ hours.

But Google aiming to become more environmentally friendly, “building the world’s most energy efficient computing infrastructure, while advancing water stewardship and strengthening energy grids in communities”. At the same time, it says it is “driving toward” a goal of achieving net-zero emissions globally by 2030.

“We are actively working on ways to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from our data centre construction by reducing the quantity of materials required to build our data centres as well as using more sustainable materials such as green concrete and renewable diesel in construction activity,” Google says.

“We set ‘moonshots’ – environmental ambitions that may seem impossible at the time we set them but pursuing these moonshots can lead to significant, systemic change that might not otherwise be achieved.”

Amazon Web Services does not disclose how much water its data centres use but says it will “return” more water to communities than it consumes by 2030. It says it will do this in two ways: partnering with non-profit organisations to increase access to water and making its own cooling systems more efficient, as it expands its data centre “regions” in Sydney and Melbourne.

Even Google's AI Overviews says the technology can be harmful to the planet.

Still, Google’s own AI Overviews warn that AI can be a dirty business. “Yes, AI can harm the planet through it’s significant energy consumption and resource uses, contributing to greenhouse gas emissions,” the overview states.

And companies must ensure their suppliers and vendors are delivering on their climate claims when it comes to completing their own sustainability reports.

Industry super funds demand such detailed reporting, with the biggest fund, AustralianSuper, saying ‘we believe investing in companies with good environment, social and governance management provides better long-term returns for members”.

The RMIT Online, Deloitte Access Economics study also found most Australian companies agree but are struggling.

While the report found 56 per cent of Australian businesses are concerned about climate change’s financial impact within the next decade, 43 per cent admit they lack the necessary skills and knowledge to adapt. This is based on a survey of 436 Australian executives at companies with 100 or more employees.

“Some of these data centres are using three to four times the amount of energy of a small city,” Mr Cola said.

“When you make those connections, people will understand it a little bit more. I would say the awareness is increasing, albeit not the pace it probably should be.”

So where to begin?

“From our perspective, it’s about training,” Mr Cola said.

“It isn’t about getting in and getting a whole new bachelor’s degree or master’s degree. There’s actually quite a lot of short courses that can help bridge that sort of skills gap.

“So for things like accountants being able to do mandatory climate reporting, that’s a pretty easy kind of shift with some specific training. But I think it does get down to really understanding where the gaps are, what the workforce needs are, where you’re going to need those green skills and then investing in the training to do it.”

Originally published as AI’s dirty secret: are your Google searches and ChatGPT prompts harming the planet?