Should I be worried about harm to the environment when I'm using AI?

AI does have an environmental impact. Using AI requires computers in data centers, and those data centers require electricity. They can also use water for cooling and have environmental impacts from constructing and operating all that equipment.

But there isn't one simple number that tells us the environmental cost of “using AI.”

Different AI tools—and different tasks—can require very different amounts of computing power.

Why does AI use energy?

When you ask an AI tool a question, your phone or computer usually isn't doing all of the work itself.

Your request is sent to powerful computers running in data centers. Those computers process the request and send the response back to you.

Operating those computers requires electricity.

And as AI use grows, the amount of electricity used by AI-focused data centers is growing too. The International Energy Agency reported in 2026 that electricity consumption from AI-focused data centers grew by about 50% in 2025.

Does every AI question use a huge amount of energy?

No.

This is where headlines can sometimes be misleading.

According to the IEA, simple text requests can require relatively little electricity, while more computationally demanding uses—such as some video generation and advanced reasoning tasks—can require hundreds or thousands of times more energy per request. AI systems are also becoming more efficient, even as overall AI use is growing rapidly.

So asking:

“How much energy does AI use?”

is a little like asking:

“How much energy does transportation use?”

Driving two miles and flying across the country both count as transportation, but they aren't equivalent activities.

So should I stop using AI?

That's a personal decision, but you don't need to think of AI use as simply good or bad.

Instead, consider whether you're getting something useful from it.

Using an AI tool to understand a difficult document, learn something new, brainstorm ideas, or make information more accessible may feel worthwhile to you.

Generating dozens of images or videos just because you can may feel different.

You can make intentional choices about when an AI tool is useful enough to you to justify using it.

It's also bigger than individual choices

Individual choices matter, but the environmental impact of AI isn't solely the responsibility of individual users.

Technology companies, data-center operators, utilities, governments, and policymakers make much larger decisions about energy sources, efficiency, infrastructure, equipment, and where data centers are built.

For example, the IEA projects that renewable energy will supply nearly half of the additional electricity needed to meet growing data-center demand through 2030—but natural gas and coal will also supply significant portions.

So environmental questions about AI aren't just about whether you should type one fewer prompt. They're also questions about how the technology industry develops and powers these systems.

The takeaway

It's reasonable to consider AI's environmental impact when deciding how you want to use it.

But you don't need to feel guilty every time you ask an AI tool a question.

A more useful approach may be:

Know that AI uses real resources. Understand that some uses require far more than others. Then decide when using it provides enough value to you to make sense.

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