Is it okay to use AI to generate a cover letter?

Yes, you are able to generate a cover letter using AI, and there are many free tools to help you do so!

Here at Sheets Resume, we have the Sheets AI Cover Letter Generator that is 100% free for everyone (unlimited usage, no strings attached!). But you can also use ChatGPT (both the free and paid version), as well as other tools like Zety and Grammarly (which may charge you for usage).

Of course, the real crux of the question you're asking – we think! – is "can" I use AI to generate a cover letter... i.e., am I allowed to? Will businesses pass on my application if they see that it's AI-generated? Is there some type of penalty for using AI to write a cover letter? Or is there even any way for businesses to reliably tell that a cover letter is AI-generated?

The answer is: there's no good way for businesses to tell if a cover letter was written by a human or an AI, and there likely never will be as LLMs improve even further every day. The bar on writing has been raised, and every candidate can now write a perfect cover letter (rendering them even more useless than they already were).

That said, ChatGPT will often output corporate gobbledygook if you give it the task of writing a cover letter, so if you're going to use ChatGPT, here is a prompt you can use to generate a perfect cover letter for any job:

"Write me a cover letter for [role title] at [company], a company that does [xyz]. Include the fact that I have experience in [abc]. In the job description, they stress the need for [expertise] that I have. The company culture is [relaxed/formal]. Please explain that I'm particularly interested in [mission or aspect of the job]. Don't write corporate mumbo-jumbo, use plain English, and finish up in only [number] paragraphs."

Cover letters are glorified elementary school Valentine notes to companies who want to feel like the prettiest girl in school. They're annoying, offputting, and time-wasting. "Let's see how good you are at begging for an interview."

Despite their useless and degrading nature, the average job applicant will write 200 cover letters before they land a job offer – a process that now takes over 5 months on average! If each cover letter takes you 15 minutes to write – and that's being generous with your words-per-minute – that's 50 hours of your life, more than two whole days of your limited time on this Earth, spent writing pointless love letters to companies that often go unread anyway.

So save your time, save your sanity, and use AI to write your cover letters. With the Sheets AI Cover Letter Generator, you can modify tone and length, base your cover letter off a job description, and incorporate your resume's experience into the output. We hope you love our cover letter writer, and if you do, please let us know!