How much does a Le Chat prompt consume?
One response from Le Chat, Mistral's AI assistant, accounts for 1.14 g of CO₂e and 45 mL of water (a response of about 400 tokens), according to the life-cycle assessment Mistral AI published with ADEME on July 22, 2025. That makes Le Chat the consumer assistant with the most completely documented footprint: the figure covers the entire life cycle, including cooling, upstream electricity and server manufacturing.
Figures published on July 22, 2025, per ~400-token response (full life-cycle assessment) · Sources: Mistral AI : analyse de cycle de vie de Le Chat, avec l'ADEME (juillet 2025)
What do 1.14 g of CO₂e and 45 mL of water represent?
45 mL is three tablespoons of water: it takes about 5 to 6 Le Chat responses to match a single glass of water, and over 1,000 for a 5-minute shower. On the carbon side, 1.14 g equals about 7 meters by car; an email with an attachment (~19 g) weighs as much as roughly fifteen responses. The unit impact stays tiny; it's the scale (billions of requests) that makes the topic real.
Why does this figure look higher than Google's or OpenAI's?
Because the scope is wider. Google (0.26 mL per median Gemini prompt) and OpenAI (0.32 mL) publish only the direct cooling water consumed on site. Le Chat's figure adds the water mobilised by upstream electricity generation and hardware manufacturing, across the whole life cycle. Even accounting for that, estimates remain spread out from one study to the next: scopes, methods and locations differ. That's why we date every figure and always state what it includes.
Is Le Chat greener than ChatGPT or Gemini?
No rigorous comparison is possible today: each vendor publishes a different scope, and Anthropic publishes nothing at all. What sets Le Chat apart is transparency: a complete, standards-based life-cycle assessment (ISO 14040/44, GHG Protocol, AFNOR methodology), run with ADEME and reviewed by third parties. Until other players release an equivalent LCA, ranking models from greenest to dirtiest is speculation.
A Le Chat prompt in everyday actions
The figures published for Le Chat, converted with the site's reference actions (every action value is sourced, see the Sources page):
- 1 email with attachment = 17 Le Chat prompts
- 1 km by car = 149 Le Chat prompts
- 1 glass of water = 5.6 Le Chat prompts
- One 5-minute shower = 1,111 Le Chat prompts