In Google’s new AI environmental impact research, these calculations were based on the company's average carbon intensity and water usage effectiveness across its portfolio.

Current measurements of AI's impact aren't telling the full story. Google has offered a new method it hopes to standardize.

A single text prompt to Google's artificial intelligence (AI) software, Gemini, consumes roughly as much electricity as just under nine seconds of television, the company said on Thursday. Google estimated the median energy use at 0.