The Environmental Cost of AI

What Your Brand’s Use of AI Really Costs (and Why It Matters for Business and Reputation)

Much of the environmental guilt around AI is directed at individual users. Limit your prompts. Shrink your digital footprint. Unplug your devices. But the systems behind AI are massive, carbon-intensive, and growing quickly, and the conversation rarely goes beyond personal use.

We’ve all seen posts about how one ChatGPT prompt can use up to 10X more energy than a Google search. What they often leave out is that it’s still far less than streaming an hour of Netflix. The numbers vary depending on the model and the task, but the takeaway is the same: even small interactions have a footprint when they scale.

And it’s not just ChatGPT. AI is already built into most of the tools people use every day. Opening Instagram. Scrolling TikTok. Autocomplete in your inbox. AI isn’t new; it’s just becoming more visible, and more complicated to account for.

There’s a familiar pattern in the way people talk about AI’s environmental impact: focus on the user, not the system. But turning off a tool or limiting prompts only goes so far when the infrastructure behind it is what’s driving the real footprint.

As researcher Marlen Komorowski puts it, a lot of the guilt lands on individuals instead of the companies building carbon-intensive systems.

“The environmental footprint of AI matters, but guilt is often placed on individual users instead of addressing the systemic changes needed.”
— Marlen Komorowski, Knowledge Center & Data Society

It’s not just a question for individual users. The real conversation is how brands and businesses account for AI’s environmental cost. That’s where we’ve been focusing our thinking at Ramp.

We use AI. We test tools. We’ve had honest conversations about what feels useful and what feels like a shortcut. We’re not here to tell anyone to turn it all off. But we are interested in how we, and the brands we work with, can make more intentional choices.

Because for companies with strong values, especially those with public commitments to climate, transparency, or sustainability, the tools you use are part of your story.

“We need to stop thinking about AI as just code running in the cloud. Every query is powered by servers, data centers, electricity, and water. The infrastructure is massive, and growing fast.”
— Karen Hao, Forbes, 2024

These are the questions we’re starting to ask:

• Do the AI tools we are exploring reflect the same environmental standards we expect in other areas of our operations?
• Are our partners transparent about the energy and water impact of the platforms they’re building or selling?
• Should environmental impact be part of how we evaluate marketing and creative tech?

We don’t have all the answers. But as a B Corp and a team that works with values-led organizations, we’re trying to hold ourselves accountable to the bigger picture.

This blog series is one way we’re thinking out loud and making space for that conversation.

This is the second post in our AI & Purpose blog series. If you missed the first one, where we unpacked our own exploration of AI and why we’re choosing to reflect on it in public, you can read it here: We work with AI. But we’re also watching it closely.

Next up, we’re digging into what AI means for creative integrity and responsibility, including how it’s affecting visual design and brand voice. We’ve been hearing great questions from our network, and we’ll be weaving those reflections into the next post.

If your team is thinking about AI’s environmental impact or wrestling with its role in your creative process, we’d love to hear what’s coming up for you.