The short answer: it is not settled
There is no simple yes or no. Candidates report real problems, and some early studies point to real risks. A large field experiment, covered below, found that an AI interviewer did as well as human recruiters in one setting. The candidate experience is often poor, and you have more options than it might seem.
What candidates report
In a May 2026 Greenhouse survey, 38% of job seekers said they had walked away from a hiring process because it included an AI interview, and another 12% said they would. 70% were not clearly told up front that AI would evaluate them. In the UK, 47% had had an AI interview and 30% had walked away because of one, according to the same research. In a LinkedIn poll reported by JobLeads, more than 36% called an AI first interview a dealbreaker, though the poll's sample size was not stated.
For many people the objection is about respect. "I don't want to work for a company if the HR person can't even spend the time to talk to me," one job seeker told Fortune. That is a fair thing to weigh when you decide where you want to work.
Where the concerns are
- Speech recognition can struggle with accents. Research reported by Information Age found that one video-interview system's speech-to-text had an error rate under 10% for US English speakers, but up to 22% for non-native speakers with other accents. If answers are assessed from a transcript, those errors carry through, and the report warns of the risk of "harm at unprecedented speed and scale".
- Disabled and neurodivergent candidates can be marked down for things unrelated to the job. An autistic candidate described a system that "kept flagging my eye contact and mannerisms," adding, "I'm not sure how it isn't disability discrimination." Eye contact, facial expression and pace can all work against people this way.
- Bias in the training data carries into the results. As one widely liked comment put it, "AI doesn't eliminate bias. AI is as biased as the data it is trained on." In the Greenhouse survey, 29% of job seekers wanted proof of a bias audit.
- Candidates are rarely told what is measured. 39% of the same respondents wanted a clear explanation of what the AI is measuring, and without one you can't prepare fairly or challenge a mistake.
- The software sometimes fails during the interview itself. A large field experiment recorded technical problems in about 7% of AI interviews. Viral clips make glitches look more common than that, but 7% is still about one interview in fourteen.
- Your recordings and transcripts are personal data. In one case reported by Information Age, a fast-food chain's hiring chatbot left more than 64 million applicant records reachable behind an admin login of "123456".
Findings that point the other way
Some results complicate the picture. In the field experiment with about 70,000 applicants, 78% chose the AI voice interviewer when they were given the choice, and applicants interviewed by the AI were 12% more likely to receive an offer. It is a working paper, not yet peer-reviewed, and it covers one setting, so it can't show that AI interviews are fair everywhere. Human interviews have biases too, and they are what the AI is being compared with.
The Greenhouse survey points the same way on one measure: perceived age bias was about the same for AI and human interviewers, at around 36%. And 38% of job seekers came away with a more positive view of an employer after a well-run AI interview. How an employer uses the format counts for a lot.
Are AI interviews legit?
Real employers do use them, so the useful question is whether a particular invitation is real. A real one comes from the company or names a platform you can check on the company's careers page. You should never be asked to pay, to install unusual software, or to give bank details or identity numbers at the screening stage. If something feels off, contact the company through its own website before you continue.
What you can do
- Ask what is assessed, and whether a person reviews your answers before any decision.
- Ask how long your recording and transcript are kept, who can see them, and how to request deletion.
- If you have a disability, a speech difference or a technical barrier, ask for an accommodation or another format. There is a guide with example wording.
- Give the software a fair chance to hear you, with a quiet room, a good microphone, full sentences and an even pace.
- Save the invitation, and take screenshots if something goes wrong.
- Decide what counts as a red flag for you. Walking away is a legitimate choice, and so is going ahead.
Practice where nothing is decided
Whatever you conclude about fairness, being used to the format means the conditions trip you up less on the day. A practice round decides nothing, so it is a safe place to find out how you come across. If you want one, you can practice with an AI interviewer on Hmmlo. We publish how we score practice answers, including the limits of those numbers, and what we keep and for how long. To read about the formats first, start with what an AI interview is.
