Liz Young (3:28)

How much time do you think that that saved you?

Nicole Nguyen (3:30)

Definitely hours. This is also because it's a part of my job, but I go on a lot of Google rabbit hole search quests, type things, and a query like this would probably take me days. You know, when I'm thinking about the perfect place to go to a vacation with my family, I spend hours during the week just trying to find the ideal place. And this deep research tool allows me to pull up out a prompt, click start query, and then I can make my coffee and come back and in 10 minutes it's done.

Liz Young (4:02)

This all sounds so magical on its surface, but what did you think of the reports that AI pulled together? What was the outcome and what were the takeaways that you were able to gather from it?

Nicole Nguyen (4:12)

So the results definitely varied. Over the course of my deep research, I was able to perfect the the way that I prompt the AI chatbot for best results. The beauty of living in this era is that a lot of these tools are now available to us for free, and it probably won't be that way forever. And so what you can do is hit deep research on many different types of AI chatbots and compare notes. How does Perplexity differ from gemini differ from ChatGPT? And that's a really good way to kick off any type of complicated search.

Julie Chang (4:46)

That was the WSJ's Liz Young speaking with personal tech columnist Nicole Nguyen. Coming up, what's the environmental cost of using Genai chatbots? One tech giant says a single query takes the same amount of energy as watching 9 seconds of TV. More on that after the break.

Sierra AI Agent (5:10)

How businesses connect with customers defines their brand. And today, connection starts with a conversation. Sierra is the AI platform for building better, more human customer experiences. Visit Sierra AI to learn more.

Julie Chang (5:29)

Google has released a new report on how much energy it takes to ask its Gen AI chatbot Gemini, a question the tech giant hopes that it'll encourage other tech companies to disclose the energy demands of their AI models with more details. Google also appears to be looking to ease brewing anxieties that frequently using generative AI such as Gemini can be detrimental to the environment. The report points out that its Gemini energy analysis is lower than public estimates. Clara Hudson is a WSJ Pro Sustainable Business reporter and she joins me now. So Clara, tell us more about this report that Google released.

Liz Young (6:07)

So the report says that when you give Gemini a prompt, it takes the same amount of energy as watching 9 seconds of TV and it also consumes about 5 drops of water. But what will likely be quite helpful to others in the tech industry is that Google went into detail about how it got to those numbers, as well as the formulas that they used for their research.

Julie Chang (6:35)

Tell us more about the water use part. I feel like water isn't something commonly thought of when discussing the use of AI.

Liz Young (6:41)

Yeah, so it's interesting that Google did talk about its water use because most of the conversation about AI and energy has been typically focused on the electricity that it needs. But data centers use a huge amount of water to cool down all of the electrical equipment that powers AI. So this report might encourage more companies to talk about their water use. And it could also help people who use chatbots really frequently and weren't even aware that there is this water cost to asking their questions.

Julie Chang (7:20)

So how does this report or the numbers presented in it by Google compare with other companies?

Liz Young (7:26)

So there isn't a lot of transparency about how much energy chatbots use across the tech industry. And where we do have those numbers, it depends on how the company calculates it. So the results could really vary depending on what you ask a chatbot to do. It could be churning out a short amount of text or a really lengthy answer. And then there are all kinds of other variables to account for, like images or video too. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said recently in a blog Post, the average ChatGPT query uses about the same amount of energy an oven would use in one second and about 1/15 of a teaspoon of water. But he actually didn't include how he got to those numbers.

Julie Chang (8:20)

Back to the report on Google does the tech giant feel that it's meeting its environmental goals? Then?

Liz Young (8:25)

It's a bit of a complicated answer because tech companies are pinning their business ambitions on AI, but they also have environmental goals that they've committed to meeting. So Google reported earlier this summer that its emissions jumped 51% since 2019 because of its AI needs. But then its Gemini report from last week said it's more efficient now than it was a year ago.

Julie Chang (8:58)

So what can users do if they want to lower their energy use when they use these AI chatbots?

Liz Young (9:04)

So if you're someone who turns to chatbots a lot, you can tailor how you use them to consume less energy. So if you ask it shorter questions and keep things simple, it's ultimately better for the environment. But if you zoom out a lot of users, asking a lot of questions is going to require a lot of energy. So asking a few questions isn't necessarily the biggest deal. But if millions of people are asking dozens of questions every day, then that's really going to add up.

Julie Chang (9:44)

And are the companies themselves doing anything to lower their energy use or have a lower environmental impact?

Liz Young (9:50)

Yeah. So it's not hopeless. There are ways to save energy so you can slow down an AI response even by just a few milliseconds if it's not an urgent question. There are ways to better manage water use also, like using recycled water or water that isn't safe to drink. And then there are clean energy options, too. So tech companies are investing in new renewable energy contracts to use hydropower, for example. But overall, that's still going to be a pretty small percentage of what is powering AI more broadly.

Julie Chang (10:34)

That was WSJ Pro Sustainable Business reporter Clara Hudson. And that's it for Tech News Briefing. Today's show was produced by me. Julie Chang, Jessica Fenton and Michael Lavalle wrote our theme music. Our supervising producer is Melanie Roy. Our development producer is Aisha Al Muslim. Chris Zinsley is the deputy editor, and Falana Patterson is the Wall Street Journal's head of news audio. We'll be back later this morning with TNB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.

Sierra AI Agent (11:09)

Every day, millions of customers engage with AI agents like me. We resolve queries fast, we work 24 7, and we're helpful, knowledgeable and empathetic. We're built to be the voice of the brands we serve. Sierra is the platform for building better, more human customer experiences with AI. No hold music, no generic answers, no frustration. Visit Sierra AI to learn more.