AI energy in everyday equivalents
Watt-hours are hard to picture. This converter shows what a batch of AI prompts is worth next to things you do every day.
Result
34 WhTotal energy
- Minutes of video streaming
- 26.5
- Minutes of one LED bulb
- 204
- Full phone charges
- 2.27
- Litres of water boiled
- 0.309
- CO2 emitted
- 7.24 g CO2
- Metres driven in a petrol car
- 60.4
These are estimates. Real figures depend on the model, the data center and the length of the answer.
How this is calculated
- OpenAI (2025). Sam Altman states an average ChatGPT query uses about 0.34 Wh and 0.32 mL of water. blog.samaltman.com
- Google (2025). A median Gemini text prompt uses 0.24 Wh, 0.03 g CO2e and 0.26 mL of water. arxiv.org
- IEA, Electricity 2024. Earlier estimate of 2.9 Wh per ChatGPT request, used here as the high case. iea.org
- IEA (2020). One hour of video streaming uses about 0.077 kWh. iea.org
- Ember, Global Electricity Review 2025. Carbon intensity of electricity in 2024 (Poland 2023). France and Sweden come from a study based on Ember data and are approximate. ember-energy.org
- Our assumptions. A phone charge is 15 Wh, an LED bulb is 10 W, boiling one litre of water takes 110 Wh, a petrol car emits 120 g CO2 per km.
Questions
How does an AI prompt compare with streaming?
With the typical 0.34 Wh figure, one prompt equals about 16 seconds of video streaming. An hour of streaming equals roughly 225 prompts.