Does Saying “Please” Help with AI? What Actually Improves ChatGPT Output

Does “Please” Make AI Work Better? Not Really.

If you’ve ever found yourself typing a prompt like “Could you help me refactor this, please?”, you’re not alone. Plenty of founders and developers use human-style language when prompting tools like ChatGPT.

You might’ve even seen Sam Altman joking that saying “please” is costing OpenAI real money. That’s true at scale. But it misses the point.

The real question is this:

 Does being polite improve the results you get from AI?

No, But Tone Does Shape the Response

From a technical perspective, the AI doesn’t care if you’re polite. The model isn’t judging your manners — it’s predicting the next word based on patterns, context, and structure.

But the way you frame your prompt can influence:

• The tone of the reply
• The level of explanation
• Whether the model assumes you're learning or executing

So while “please” doesn’t make the code better, framing does.

Example: Two Prompt Styles, Two Outcomes

“Write a Laravel migration that creates a transactions table.”
 (Direct, task-based)

vs.

“OK, so I’m building a financial app. I need a Laravel migration for a transactions table. Please include timestamps and soft deletes.”
 (Conversational, context-rich)

You’ll get valid code either way — but the second version may include better structure, inline comments, and clearer assumptions. It’s not magic — it’s framing.

Choose Your Prompt Style Based on Your Goal

At John Shipp and Associates, we work with founders and technical teams across all levels. One thing we see often? Misaligned prompting. Here’s how to fix it:

Direct Prompt Style: "Write code that..."
* Fast execution
* Known outcomes
* Concise code, minimal explanation

Conversational Prompt Style: "Let's write code that..."
* Exploratory work
* Learning mode
* Helpful tone, detailed output

If you want precision, go direct. If you’re trying to learn or explore, give the model room to respond in kind.

What Actually Improves AI Output

Don’t worry about “please.” Worry about this:

• ✅ Clear instructions
• ✅ Specific goals (framework, version, constraints)
• ✅ Structured prompts (lists, bullets, delimiters)
• ✅ Context (what the code will be used for)
• ✅ Iteration (the first output is rarely the best one)

AI responds better to structure than style. The sooner you think like that, the faster you get usable results.

Is Politeness Expensive? Technically, Yes — Barely

Every word in your prompt adds tokens. More tokens = slightly higher compute cost. But a word like “please” costs pennies, if that. The issue only matters at scale — not to individual users like you.

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to “trick” the model into giving you better output with niceties. You need to communicate clearly — like you would to a junior developer or a contractor on a deadline.

Want better output from ChatGPT? Be precise. Be structured.
 Say “please” if you want, but don’t expect it to make your code cleaner.

If you’ve hit a wall with AI-assisted development and need help structuring your prompts, improving your workflow, or cleaning up the output... give us a shout, we can help!