The cover letter: what it is still worth in 2026
Should you still write a cover letter? The question irritates, because the available answers contradict each other and are rarely sourced. Here is what the data shows, including where it is inconvenient.
Companies dropped it before ChatGPT
The most important point usually goes unmentioned: the decline began before generative AI. According to APEC's annual survey of 1,150 companies that hired at least one manager, the share requesting a cover letter has collapsed:
- 67% in 2021
- 56% in 2022
- 50% in 2023 — 17 points lost in two years
Source: APEC, Pratiques de recrutement de cadres 2024. ChatGPT launched in late 2022: most of the drop predates it.
The reason companies give is blunt. APEC reports they see the exercise as pointless, preferring to let candidates present themselves "in person" instead.
What replaced it: the phone
The letter did not vanish into thin air. It was replaced by another filter: the phone screen, used by 71% of companies — 13 points more than in 2019 (same APEC source).
The practical implication is clear: the effort you used to put into the letter is probably better spent preparing that first call. That is where the sorting the letter once did now happens.
AI finished draining its signal
Economists at Yale measured what happens when an automatic letter-writing tool arrives on a hiring platform. Comparing more than five million applications before and after its launch, they find that the link between letter quality and getting a callback falls by half.
The mechanism is plain: when anyone can produce a good letter in one click, a good letter no longer says anything about the candidate. It stops being a signal (Cui, Dias & Ye, Signaling in the Age of AI, 2025).
The cover letter is not dying because it is badly written. It is dying because it became uninformative.
"Recruiters can spot AI": actually, no
That is the argument you hear everywhere. It holds up poorly under test. When recruiters were asked to sort three letter openings into "written by a human" or "written by ChatGPT", only 18% got all three right — ResumeBuilder.com survey, 1,000 US participants, March 2023.
What sets this survey apart: it actually tests recruiters instead of asking whether they think they are good at it. The gap between what they believe they catch and what they actually catch is exactly the lesson.
On acceptability, a TopResume survey of 600 US hiring managers (May 2025) found 52% consider it acceptable to use AI for proofreading or drafting support, while roughly one in five would reject a candidate whose letter is obviously generated. The red line is not the tool: it is the text delivered raw.
What still sets you apart: editing time
This is the most actionable finding in the whole file, and it comes from the Yale study: 75% of AI-assisted letters are sent after less than one minute of editing. And candidates who edit more receive significantly more offers.
In other words, the bar is very low. In a stream of letters generated and shipped as-is, ten minutes of personal rewriting is enough to stand out. In France, the HelloWork 2025 survey (2,247 candidates surveyed) reports the cover letter is the leading AI use case among candidates, cited by 72% of those who use it. Your competition is mostly untouched text.
The method, in practice
1. The opening: the company, not you
One sentence showing you know their activity, a recent project, or an issue in their sector. No model can invent that unless you feed it the information — which is precisely why it signals real effort.
2. The core: two or three precise matches
Connect explicit requirements from the posting to concrete experiences. Do not paraphrase the CV: illustrate it. One dated, quantified, verifiable example beats ten adjectives.
3. The close: looking ahead
What you want to bring, and a suggested conversation. One page is plenty.
When to skip it, when to insist
Since only one company in two asks for it, the rule is simple: if it is not requested, do not attach one by default — invest that time in tailoring your CV to the posting, whose usefulness is not in question. If it is requested, treat it as a real exercise: that is the sign someone will read it.
One last point. The figures circulating on this topic — "83% of recruiters read cover letters" and its variants — almost all come from surveys commissioned by companies selling CV-writing services, and contradict each other by a factor of three. Base no decision on them.
Where we stand
Cvnetic drafts a first version from your CV and the posting — but the tool does not exempt you from the step that counts: rereading and rewriting it in your voice. Given the data above, that is where what little edge remains is found. Generate your first letter.
Sources
- APEC, Pratiques de recrutement de cadres 2024 (1,150 companies, fieldwork January-February 2024).
- APEC, La fin annoncée de la lettre de motivation ?
- Cui, Dias & Ye (Yale), Signaling in the Age of AI: Evidence from Cover Letters, 2025 (over five million applications analysed).
- ResumeBuilder.com, ChatGPT cover-letter detection test, 2023 (1,000 participants).
- TopResume, Where Employers Draw the Line on the Use of AI in Hiring, 2025 (600 US hiring managers).
- HelloWork, candidate-recruiter survey 2025 (2,247 candidates and 486 HR professionals).