70% of Brits Use Please and Thank You With AI, Study Finds

What happened

Around seven in ten Britons say "please" or "thank you" when they speak to AI, according to new research reported by TechRadar. A smaller group goes further and apologises to the system. The findings suggest that politeness towards AI is growing, even though public opinion of the technology remains sceptical.

The headline result is that 70% of respondents report using courtesy phrases with AI tools. Reporting on the study frames the behaviour as a counterpoint to the broader reservations people express about AI, which makes the gap between attitude and conduct the central point of the story.

Why it matters

When most users address a conversational system with social courtesies, they are treating it as something closer to a social actor than a tool. That changes what a good interaction looks like. People bring the norms of human conversation into their exchanges with AI: greetings, gratitude, apology and an expectation of a considerate reply. Leaders deploying AI assistants in service, sales or internal workflows should assume that these expectations are already in place.

For experience teams, the finding is a design input rather than a curiosity. How an assistant responds to thanks, to an apology or to a blunt instruction shapes whether the exchange feels respectful and easy. Because the research shows the behaviour is spreading despite scepticism about AI in general, it points to a practical gap: the people using these tools are often more comfortable with them than their stated views would suggest.

The Renascence take

Most coverage of this story will read it as a quirky finding about human manners. The more useful reading is that people are quietly telling us how they want AI to behave, and they are doing it through their habits rather than their opinions.

Politeness toward a machine is rarely about the machine. It is a low-cost way for people to keep their social footing while handing a task to something they do not fully trust. Customer-obsessed operators should treat courtesy as a signal of expectations, not a quirk to be tolerated. Design assistants to respond to thanks and apologies with warmth that is honest rather than performative, and test whether your AI makes people feel respected or merely processed.