How Your Google Search Now Uses 10x More Water Than Last Year
If you looked back just one year ago, a normal Google search used about 0.01 fluid ounces of water. But now with Google’s new AI Overviews, the same search uses up to 5 times more water, and you probably didn’t even notice a change!
What Changed
The AI Overview Revolution
The year that Google rolled out AI overviews was 2024, and after that every search engine followed with AI generated summary’s at the top of every result. We never asked for it, but now we use it a lot. Instead of how you would normally click on a web page for the information, now you probably read the AI overview.
The Technology Behind It
If you would search up things in the older times you would see a data base and it would show you links that you would click on to find the information you wanted to know. Now Google runs an AI model, which looks in that same database, and then generates text for you.
Why all of this takes so much more energy is because AI models need a lot of computing power. More computing equals more heat, and more heat need more water for cooling.
The Numbers
Water Usage
How much water the old Google Search would take is about 0.01 fluid ounces of water. With the new AI overviews Google searches take about 0.05-1 fluid ounces of water! An even more startling statistic is how when you have a normal conversation with an AI like ChatGPT, it uses 0.3-50 fluid ounces of water!
Impact
If you think about it, 8.5 billion searches on Google happen every day! Before AI about 687,000 gallons of water was used per day. Now with AI overviews that number jumps to an astounding 4-6.6 million gallons per day! That’s like filling 6-10 Olympic sized swimming pools!
Why This Uses So Much Water
Data Center Cooling
AI servers make huge amounts of heat, so a lot of water is needed to keep the servers form overheating. If a data center is built in a hot climate, it needs even more water, some centers even use evaporation cooling!
Geographic Problems
Many data centers are built in places where water is less plentiful like in Arizona, Nevada, and Texas. Google’s centers compete with local communities for water, which makes drought times even worse.
The Bigger Picture
Industry Wide Changes
Many other companies added AI features like Google. One of them is Microsoft, and after that almost every major search engine now uses it due to Google’s change. All of our search habits have stayed mostly the same, but now water usage has exploded. The worst thing about all of this is how you can’t even opt out of any of these features!
Daily Impact
When 100 Google searches happen with AI, about a minute of showering time is used, which is about 2.5 gallons! Your smartphone’s daily usage of AI is equal to washing a few dishes. About 1-2 gallons of water. When you ask ChatGPT only 20 questions it uses as much water as a 5 minute shower!
What Companies Are Doing
What Google Is Doing
To make up for how much energy and water Google is using they are investing in water-efficient cooling, building in cooler areas when possible, and using recycled water when available. But even with all of this they use a lot more recourses because of AI.
The Rest of The Industry
Other companies are looking at this AI Overview market in a different way, and are trying to be more sustainable by using Liquid cooling systems, that are more efficient, renewable energy, and some are even using heat reuse projects. Which uses the heat from the servers to heat normal buildings.
What All of This Means for You
The Forced Switch
We never chose to use more water, but now here we are. The same search behavior that we had a few years ago now has a bigger environmental impact. Sadly no “simple search” option is available yet.
Looking Into The Future
Whether we want them or not more AI features will be coming to search, water usage will keep increasing. But we should pressure these companies to find environmental solutions, and maybe the government will need to make regulation or transparency requirements.
The Bottom Line
AI changed search basically overnight, and environmental cost multiplied without a choice. We ned to ask these companies for better efficiency and transparency. My question is, are AI features worth all the water?
Do you think AI is bad for us humans? Do you think Google should turn off AI Overviews to save water? Let us know in the comments!