Big Tech Meets Big Scrutiny: the Trust Gap Is Closing.

Here's a thought that struck me while reading recent reports on AI energy use: if the oil and gas industry reported emissions as opaquely as Big Tech is currently doing, it would be having a really bad time publicly.

Big Tech is just starting to face the scrutiny that "Big Energy" has dealt with for years. And the window for establishing credibility, before narratives harden and trust erodes, is open now, but it won't stay open forever.

The Data Gap That's Creating Risk

The energy needs of AI remain, frankly, a black box of wild guesses. But what we do know is that the demand is undeniably massive, growing, and carries serious policy and economic implications.

As MIT Technology Review puts it, "data centres in the US used somewhere around 200 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024—roughly what it takes to power Thailand for a year." The same report notes that "the common understanding of AI's energy consumption is full of holes."

Why?

Because the energy needs of the whole AI "supply chain" are difficult to calculate, with little to no specific data being available. From a model's inception, through development and training, to when it's finally let out to play - teaching you how to bake a cake, whip up an Excel formula, or generate five avatars of your pet as a Marvel character - there are energy requirements at every stage.

Berkeley Lab's researchers express a wish for "greater transparency in data centre energy use, as the lack of data availability significantly limits analysis." Their report also notes that "very few companies report actual data center electricity use and virtually none report it in context of IT characteristics such as compute capacities, average system configurations, and workload types."

Meanwhile, Google's recent AI energy use disclosure limited itself to sharing the median Gemini Apps' text prompt energy use—"less energy than watching nine seconds of television." The challenge, of course, is that reporting a tiny data point of a median use case of something with as vast and complex a range of functionalities as AI models is not very informative at all.

Lesson from oil and gas: reporting to simply check a box can add more criticism than credibility, and even with the best intentions and reporting, criticism is guaranteed. Reactive narratives work against you.

The Credibility Collision

The physical reality of GenAI's exploding energy demand has gone head-to-head against the physical reality of attaining the desired net-zero emissions energy supply, with all its cost, timeline, and practicality challenges amidst breakneck competitive pressure.

This juxtaposition has flipped the tech industry's sustainability messaging playbooks on their head. The promises of carbon neutrality made earlier, most likely in good faith, have become impossible to deliver within the original timelines. The old narrative is showing obvious cracks.

We're seeing this play out in real time, as some of the most enthusiastic advocates of net-zero have had to backpedal on their commitments over the last 12 months when push came to shove.

What Tech Can Learn from Energy

This is not a call for oil and gas spokespeople to grab the proverbial pitchforks and march down WeToldYouSo street. This is an opportunity for everyone to look at this situation and ask: what can we all learn from it?

For tech communicators, the lesson is this: the scrutiny is coming whether you're ready or not. The companies that get ahead of it, with genuine transparency, realistic commitments, and clear-eyed acknowledgment of trade-offs—will fare far better than those caught reactive and defensive.

For energy communicators, this situation illuminates something important: the hard questions and moral dilemmas that sometimes remain invisible beneath the surface of energy transition rally cries. These calls often underestimate the serious sacrifices that few are actually ready, or willing, to make when push comes to shove.

It is incredibly difficult to reconcile the physical realities of energy and technology needs of a modern society and our daily comforts with the moral imperative to keep the planet protected from overheating. We might frame this as the willingness to forego present comfort for a chance of a less environmentally dangerous future.

The Path Forward

Reconciling the material and the ideal requires a completely different form of conversation than what we've been using in climate and energy discourse.

It requires a genuine desire from all sides to make a deal that everyone can live with—and that, in turn, requires all sides to negotiate in good faith. That means seeking resolution, not punishment and a guilty verdict.

In the meantime, we continue to be stuck in respective echo chambers, powerfully reinforced by media algorithms, where the main story is about searching for the guilty instead of searching for the solution.

The Bottom Line

Tech's reputation-reinforcement window is open. What the industry does and says in this relatively early stage of AI scrutiny will determine public trust for years or decades to come. In practice, that means it will determine the amount of time and budget that will be eaten by putting out PR fires in the future.

The oil and gas sector learned its lessons the hard way. Tech doesn't have to.

The companies that engage honestly, disclose meaningfully, and acknowledge trade-offs openly will build the credibility reserves they'll need when the inevitable tough questions come. Those that don't will find themselves playing catch-up in a narrative that's already been written without them.

Navigating this terrain—building communications strategies that earn trust in complex, high-scrutiny environments—is exactly what we help energy and technology companies do.

Learn more about how STATEM can help →

Sources:

• We did the math on AI's energy footprint. Here's the story you haven't heard. — MIT Technology Review

• 2024 United States Data Center Energy Usage Report — Berkeley Lab

• Measuring the environmental impact of delivering AI at Google Scale — Google Cloud Blog

Tags: #GenAI #EnergyCommunications #Sustainability #ClimateComms #NetZero #TechIndustry #DataCentres #ReputationRisk #CorporateCommunications