Saying “Please” To AI Could Be Burning Millions in Energy

Experts say politeness to AI shapes its tone, while OpenAI’s Sam Altman admits the courtesy is costing millions in electricity.

Saying “please” and “thank you” to AI chatbots might sound like harmless manners—or even pointless. But it’s actually costing tech giants millions, and some say it’s a habit worth keeping.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently confirmed that courtesy isn’t free. Using “please” and “thank you” with AI chatbots appears to be nothing more than polite manners, yet, as reported in a recent article by Futurism, it might result in millions of dollars in losses for tech companies.

User @tomiinlove posted on X that he wondered about the electricity expenses OpenAI incurred from users thanking their models. To which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman replied with:

tens of millions of dollars well spent–you never know

— Sam Altman (@sama) April 16, 2025

Microsoft’s Kurtis Beavers, a director on the design team for Microsoft Copilot, says in an interview with WorkLab, that while AI doesn’t have feelings, it responds more collaboratively when users set a respectful tone.

Because generative AI models are trained on human conversations, they reflect the politeness, professionalism, and clarity of your input. “It’s a conversation,” Beavers notes, and the user guides the tone. Saying “please” and “thank you” not only improves the chatbot’s responses.

Futurism reports that a survey from late 2024 revealed that 67% of U.S. users are polite to their chatbots. Of those, 55% said they do it because “it’s the right thing to do,” while 12% admitted it’s just in case of an AI uprising.

A Washington Post investigation together with researchers from the University of California studied the environmental impact of messages produced by AI. The energy consumption from sending one AI-assisted email weekly throughout a year equals 7.5 kWh which matches the power usage of nine Washington D.C. households during one hour.

Although AI etiquette may seem minor, it highlights a larger issue: our digital behavior has real-world energy consequences. Indeed notes that the data centers running these AI tools already use about 2% of global electricity—a figure expected to rise sharply as AI becomes more integrated into daily life.