Saying ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ to AI Sounds Crazy. It Might Actually Work.

You realize AI isn’t an actual person with feelings, right? Tell that to the 86% of office workers who say “please” and “thank you” to their chatbots.

According to a new survey of 2,000 U.S. office workers commissioned by tech education company TripleTen, two-thirds say it’s important to show Claude or ChatGPT common courtesy. Not because they have good manners, but because they believe, “AI is more likely to respond correctly when you use ‘please’,” as one respondent said. Another commented: “I want to be polite now so I’ll be remembered positively when our robot overlords take over.”

To be clear, no independent research confirms that kissing up to your chatbot wins you brownie points. The survey measures belief, not results. But the underlying logic isn’t entirely misguided. Tone, context and specificity do affect what comes back.

The more useful findings are buried deeper in the survey. Executives are nearly twice as likely to embrace AI as their staff (93% vs. 70%) and feel significantly further ahead in using it (42% vs. 12%). Maybe staffers should be less concerned with playing nice with AI and more concerned with actually using it.

You realize AI isn’t an actual person with feelings, right? Tell that to the 86% of office workers who say “please” and “thank you” to their chatbots.

According to a new survey of 2,000 U.S. office workers commissioned by tech education company TripleTen, two-thirds say it’s important to show Claude or ChatGPT common courtesy. Not because they have good manners, but because they believe, “AI is more likely to respond correctly when you use ‘please’,” as one respondent said. Another commented: “I want to be polite now so I’ll be remembered positively when our robot overlords take over.”

To be clear, no independent research confirms that kissing up to your chatbot wins you brownie points. The survey measures belief, not results. But the underlying logic isn’t entirely misguided. Tone, context and specificity do affect what comes back.

The more useful findings are buried deeper in the survey. Executives are nearly twice as likely to embrace AI as their staff (93% vs. 70%) and feel significantly further ahead in using it (42% vs. 12%). Maybe staffers should be less concerned with playing nice with AI and more concerned with actually using it.