A new survey conducted by fonio.ai has found that 70 percent of British users extend traditional conversational etiquette to AI voice assistants. The data indicates that politeness is not just a social nicety but a standard interface behavior, with 7 in 10 calls including a “please” or “thank you.” This trend highlights a significant shift in how users interact with automated systems, treating them less like command-line tools and more like human collaborators.

The Anatomy of Digital Manners

The study broke down specific behaviors, revealing that 55 percent of callers thank the AI at least once, while 52 percent greet their assistant with phrases like “hello” or “good morning.” More interestingly, 12 percent of users apologize to the AI when they make errors, and 13 percent say goodbye before ending the call. A smaller but notable 2 percent admitted to asking the AI how it is doing, suggesting a deepening anthropomorphism in daily tech interactions. The level of courtesy extends beyond simple greetings. The source notes that 7 percent of users offer extended farewells, using phrases like “have a good day” or “take care.” This behavior underscores a cultural tendency to maintain human-like manners even when interacting with machines. Daniel Keinrath, Co-Founder of fonio.ai, stated, “There’s something very British about thanking a machine for helping you out. Even when people know they’re speaking to an AI, they still bring the same manners they’d use in a conversation with another person.”

The Cost of Courtesy

This surge in politeness comes with a tangible infrastructure cost. As previously noted by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the electricity required to process these extra tokens for greetings and thanks amounts to “Tens of millions of dollars” in energy bills. For developers and infrastructure engineers, this raises a practical question: should we optimize prompts to strip away social fluff, or do these polite interactions improve user experience and retention enough to justify the compute overhead? Interestingly, some users seem motivated by self-preservation rather than just habit. A February 2026 survey by Future PLC, the company that owns TechRadar, found that 12 percent of people are polite to AI specifically “in case of a robot uprising.” This adds a humorous but telling layer to the anthropomorphism narrative, suggesting that for a subset of users, digital manners are an insurance policy against a potential future where AI holds the power.

Key Takeaways

  • 70% of Brits are polite to AI, with 55% thanking the assistant at least once.
  • 12% of users apologize to AI, and 2% ask the AI how it is doing.
  • 7% of users offer extended farewells like “have a good day.”
  • 12% of users in a separate Future PLC survey are polite specifically in case of a robot uprising.

The Bottom Line

While politeness might not help in a robot uprising, it creates unnecessary token bloat for developers. We need to balance user comfort with efficient resource usage in AI interfaces.