Google Assistant will now be nicer if you say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’

Is barking orders at our AI-powered voice assistants turning us into jerks? Are our kids growing accustomed to commanding the Google Homes and Siris of the world to turn on the lights without the politeness of a “please”?

Perhaps. With that in mind, from here on out, Google Assistant will be a bit more cheery if you take the time to say “please” or “thank you.”

If, for example, you say, “Hey Google, please set a timer for 10 minutes,” Google Assistant will respond “Thanks for asking so nicely! 10 minutes, starting now.”

To be clear: It’s totally optional. Prefer to be curt? That’s okay — Assistant won’t chastise you. But if these are habits you’re trying to instill in a little one or polish up yourself, Assistant will respond in kind.

Google first mentioned that they’d be adding this feature, which they call “Pretty Please,” at I/O in May. Amazon rolled an almost identical feature into Alexa back in April of this year.

Google Assistant is picking up a few other new tricks this morning: