Summary Letters of recommendation are increasingly important for the residency match. We assessed whether an artificial intelligence (AI) tool could help in writing letters of recommendation by analyzing recommendation letters written by 3 academic staff and AI duplicate versions for 13 applicants. The preferred letters were selected by 3 blinded orthopedic program directors based on a pre-determined set of criteria. The first orthopedic program director selected the AI letter for 31% of applicants, and the 2 remaining program directors selected the AI letter for 38% of applicants, with the staff-written versions selected more often by all of the program directors ( p < 0.05). The first program director recognized only 15% of the AI-written letters, the second was able to identify 92%, and the third director identified 77% of AI-written letters ( p < 0.05).