For many people, writing a cover letter is the most agonizing part of the job search process. Listing your qualifications, hyping yourself and your skills and finding some way to rise above the competition is a lot of pressure. But the rise of generative artificial intelligence could put an end to that particular headache.
While they’re still rudimentary on many levels, today’s prominent AI chatbots, like Chat GPT, Google’s Bard and others, are more than capable of writing an introductory note that touches all of the necessary bases.
It’s questionable, of course, whether today’s hiring managers even read cover letters, regardless of who writes them. But the fact that candidates are able to get a good first draft of a cover letter in just seconds (or, at the very least, a direction to guide them) illustrates just how thoroughly AI could change business communications.
Beyond taking the burden off of the applicant to pitch themselves, AI can also help bridge language gaps for non-English speakers who are seeking a job—or taking part in any sort of business communication. It’s a tool that can polish phrases or sentences when you’re not quite sure how to phrase it.
AI, for now, is a bit more tailored to white collar jobs. It can help with the daily drudgery of emails, reports and other communication-based tasks (It is, as you might imagine, less helpful when it comes to doing manual labor).
“The introduction of AI into interpersonal communication has the potential to once again transform how people communicate, upend assumptions around agency and mediation, and introduce new ethical question,” wrote Jeffrey T Hancock, Mor Naaman, and Karen Levy, the authors of a recent academic study of AI.
One problem with AI writing is the system’s inherent fallibility in its current state. Whether it’s a cover letter or internal communication within a company, it’s critical to proofread the AI document carefully to ensure its accuracy and be certain that no AI hallucination has snuck into the process.
For readers, it’s just as critical to verify the source of the document. Deep fakes and spoofing are easier than ever today thanks to AI, meaning you’ll want to be sure that the sender was legitimate before acting on any correspondence.
“In the worst case, the effects may be quite bleak,” warned Hancock, Naaman and Levy. “If manipulative and false messaging is easier to generate and harder to detect, AI might…[undermined] trust in any interaction besides those that occur face-to-face. But AI also has the potential to improve human communication by augmenting our natural ability to communicate with one another.”
Another concern? Biases. AI is only as good as its source/learning material. If it’s not presented with a wide enough range of options, the documents it creates could default to the same preconceptions humans struggle with—and possibly amplify them.
AI, of course, will change communications far beyond business correspondence. Chatbots and virtual assistants will likely take on a bigger role in customer service in the years to come. And language barriers will disappear as personalized interactions increase (since the AI will have access to the company’s Big Data records on each customer).
It also will likely play a bigger role in social media communications, as it can better keep up with the flow of feedback from customers.
For now, AI’s potential transformative impact on business communications is something we can only guess at. The technology is changing quickly—and our understanding of what it can do is still in the early stages as well. One thing is certain, though: AI-powered communication isn’t going away and it’s going to have a profound impact on the way business people interact with each other and their customers.
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