Big Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn't Offer Much Proof

A new report finds that of 154 specific claims about how AI will benefit the climate, just a quarter cited academic research. A third included no evidence at all. Molly TaftScienceFeb 18, 2026 10:17 AMBig Tech Says Generative AI Will Save the Planet. It Doesn't Offer Much ProofA new report finds that of 154 specific claims about how AI will benefit the climate, just a quarter cited academic research. A third included no evidence at all.Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty ImagesSave StorySave this storySave StorySave this storyA few years ago, Ketan Joshi read a statistic about artificial intelligence and climate change that caught his eye. In late 2023, Google began claiming that AI could help cut global greenhouse gas emissions by between five and 10 percent by 2030. This claim was spread in an op-ed coauthored by its chief sustainability officer, and subsequently quoted across the press and in some academic papers.Joshi, an energy researcher, was shocked by the massive numbers Google was touting—especially AI’s purported ability to effectively cut the equivalent of what the European Union emits each year. “I found [the emissions claim] really compelling because there's very few things that can do that,” he says.He decided to track down its source. That five to 10 percent number, Joshi found, was drawn from a paper published by Google and BCG, a consulting group, which in turn drew from a 2021 analysis by BCG, which simply cited the company’s “experience with clients” as a basis for estimating massive emissions reductions from AI—a source Joshi called “flimsy.” The analysis was published a year before the introduction of ChatGPT kicked off a race to build out the energy-intensive infrastructure that, tech companies claim, is needed to power the AI revolution.A few months after it first stood behind the five to 10 percent estimate, in its 2023 sustainability report, Google quietly admitted that the AI buildout was significantly driving up its corporate emissions. Yet it has continued to tout the numbers provided to it from BCG, most recently last year in a memo to European policymakers.One of the most powerful tech companies in the world using this metric to make “policy recommendations to one of the biggest regions in the world—I thought that was remarkable,” says Joshi. “That instance was what got me immediately very interested in the structure of this claim and the evidence behind it.”"We stand by our methodology, which is grounded in the best available science," Google spokesperson Mara Harris told WIRED in an email in response to several questions about the five to 10 percent statistic. “And we're transparent in sharing the principles and methodology that guide it.” Harris included a link to the company’s methodology on calculating emissions reductions from Google products and partnerships, but did not elaborate on how, exactly, the company applied these standards to the BCG numbers. (BCG did not respond to WIRED’s questions.)Tech companies are locked in a battle to develop AI as fast as possible—one with potentially massive implications for climate change. In the US, the world’s biggest data center market, energy pressure from this buildout has resulted in coal plants staying open and hundreds of gigawatts of new gas power in line to be added to the grid, with nearly 100 gigawatts of that power earmarked solely to power data centers.Tech executives have said over and over again that this energy and data center buildout will be worth it, given the possibilities that AI presents for the planet. At New York City’s annual Climate Week event last year, the Bezos Earth Fund, Jeff Bezos’s sustainability focused nonprofit, hosted a series of conversations on how “AI will be an environmental force for good.” In late 2024, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said that since the world wouldn’t hit its climate goals, it’s more important to focus on what AI can do. (“I'd rather bet on AI solving the problem, than constraining it and having the problem,” he said.) OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman has promised that AI will “fix” the climate.But a lot of these claims, it turns out, have very little—if any—actual proof behind them.Joshi is the author of a new report, released Monday with support from several environmental organizations, that attempts to quantify some of the most high-profile claims made about how AI will save the planet. The report looks at more than claims made by tech companies, energy associations, and others about how "AI will serve as a net climate benefit.” Joshi’s analysis finds that just a quarter of those claims were backed up by academic research, while more than a third did not publicly cite any evidence at all.“People make assertions about the kind of societal impacts of AI and the effects on the energy system—those assertions often lack rigor,” says Jon Koomey, an energy and technology researcher who was not involved in Joshi’s report. “It's important not to take self-interested claims at face value. Some of those claims may be true, but you have to be very careful. I think there's a lot of people who make these statements withou