Energy & Impact

Every AI reply uses electricity. Viro shows you an estimate of that energy on every message and funds new renewable energy to cover it. This page explains what the numbers mean and where the money goes.

A typical text reply uses a fraction of a watt-hour (Wh). Messages use more when the conversation is long, when the model reasons through a problem, when Viro searches the web, and especially when you generate an image.

• Under each reply. A small ⚡ label shows that message's estimate, for example ⚡ +.3 Wh.
• At the top of the app. The ⚡ total is your lifetime energy. Select it to open Your Climate Impact, which also shows Our Collective Impact across everyone using Viro.

On the Supercharged plan, your climate impact is multiplied 10x.

Energy use scales with tokens, the pieces of text a model reads and writes. For each message, Viro takes the token counts reported by the model and converts them to watt-hours:

tokens → compute → watt-hours

The estimate counts:

• What the model reads: your message and the conversation it needs as context
• What the model writes, including any reasoning
• Extra work, like web searches and generated images

It's an estimate, not a meter reading. The rates come from published energy disclosures and independent research, and Viro uses conservative assumptions. The Energy & Impact Methodology lists every source and assumption.

By using the right size of model for each request. When you use Viro AI, simple, everyday questions go to small, efficient models, and larger models handle complex or specialized tasks. You still get a capable model when you need one; Viro just doesn't use one when you don't.

Most AI apps send every request to the same large model. Based on Viro's own usage data, routing this way cuts estimated energy use by roughly 14x compared with sending every request to the most capable model.

Each model in Viro has one of two energy labels. You can see them by opening the model menu and selecting About our AI models.

• 100% clean energy means the model runs on renewable-powered infrastructure. Viro AI has this label.
• Energy matched means the model runs in its provider's data centers, and Viro funds new renewable energy generation to cover the electricity your chat used. ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude have this label.

Viro doesn't use carbon offsets or carbon credits. See Our Data Centers and AI Models.

Renewable energy. Viro funds verified renewable generation to cover the estimated energy of your chats, from solar, wind, and hydro projects.

Climate restoration. Viro's remaining profits fund projects that repair ecosystems. The first partner is The Ocean Cleanup, which removes plastic from rivers and oceans.

See How Impact Works for how the estimate, renewable matching, and restoration fit together, and Projects We Support.

Far less than typical AI. A data center cooled by evaporating water consumes around 1.8 liters of water for every kilowatt-hour it uses. The data centers that run Viro AI are cooled by cold outside air and closed-loop liquid systems that recirculate their water instead of evaporating it, so they consume only a small fraction of that. In Norway, cooling water drawn from the fjord is returned, and its waste heat goes on to nearby fish farms. See Does Viro AI Use Water? and Our Data Centers.

Water isn't included in the per-message energy estimate yet.

The estimate covers the electricity used to generate each reply. It doesn't yet include:

• Manufacturing and disposing of AI hardware
• Building data centers
• Training the models in the first place
• Long-distance networking
• Water used for cooling

These matter, but reliable, comparable research on them is still thin. Viro plans to add them as that research matures.

The Energy & Impact Methodology covers scope, data sources, renewable matching, and restoration funding in detail. Researchers and anyone who wants to challenge the numbers can reach Viro at nick@viro.app.