IRIS Software Group Unveils Generative AI, Chatbot and Automation Features for HR, Recruitment and Payroll Professionals

These Artificial Intelligence Startups Want to Fix Tech’s Diversity Problem

Here are two noteworthy products, among many in the market, that use AI in ascertaining and improving skills. “This AI breakthrough in customer interaction means superior experiences for our customers at better prices, more interesting challenges for our employees, and better returns for our investors,” Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in chatbot recruiting a statement. Employers may need to take a critical look at offerings that fail to disclose that generative AI is being used. According to Forrester’s Global Government, Society and Trust Survey, adults in the U.S. remain skeptical of some corporate AI use. They found that only 29% of U.S. adults trust the information an AI chatbot provides.

• In summary, if an algorithmic system is trained on biased and unrepresentative data, it runs the risk of replicating that bias.
• This she does, but Olivia also solves the logistical challenge of interview scheduling and can review hundreds of hiring managers‘ calendars to schedule interviews in seconds.
• You asked for popular podcast modalities and we delivered through a partnership with WaitWhat’s Masters of Scale.
• The apparent success of Klarna’s adoption of AI now appears to have fundamentally altered the way the company hires, and unless you’re an engineer, it’s not great news for workers.

The first “real” interactions many recruiters had with AI and automation were with seemingly simple yet impactful email automation (and later, text message automation). Another powerful and early application of generative AI in recruiting focused on the ROI enhancement of tech stacks. Specifically, many recruiters used AI to improve the health of the candidate data in their ATSs, as well as their ability to send relevant job openings to candidates. By applying AI and automation in these ways, many organizations saw improvements in core metrics like cost per hire, time to hire and, for staffing firms, redeployment.

It can collect and evaluate large amounts of data that may exceed human analytical capacities, enabling AI to provide decision recommendations (Shaw, 2019). Cancer patients hoping to be part of a clinical trial for a new therapy often have difficulty locating and applying for such trials, while the contract research organizations (CROs) managing the trials often have difficulty recruiting patients. As of now, the UK government has no weapons in its legislative arsenal to battle this issue, whose potential rises with the growing abundance of A.I. However, it seems „whoever created ‚Al-Adna‘ clearly spent some time ensuring that users would encounter different content than is encountered by the gentler users of Love Advice [another A.I. chatbot].“ Character.ai provides users a chance to talk to chatbots who impersonate characters from history, like Mongol emperor Genghis Khan, and fiction, and offers in-character responses.

An AI caveat for recruiters

The company downplayed those fears to recruiters, explaining to them that the chatbot was designed to augment their efforts, not replace them, he said. Products such as ChatGPT can compose text that can serve as a starting point for an HR policy or other HR text. For example, if HR staff is hiring employees for a new company location, the AI system can share information that may be relevant to the user, such as minimum wage in certain states. To drive the point home about periodically checking your organization’s application process for friction points, Brandstetter told a story about helping one of her clients build a hiring blueprint. And the process was OK, but they started asking questions about did [I] have a felony [conviction] and things that you should not be asking at that part of the process,” she said. To approach recruitment through a more empathetic lens, Brandstetter also asked attendees to apply for a job at one of their competitors and take notes on the candidate experience.

Within two working days after the completion of the interview, the analysis and organization of the interview data was completed. The Nvivo 12 plus software coded the interview data in three layers from the bottom up, with the content as the center. Therefore, constructing a more unbiased dataset is one of the methods that can be employed to tackle algorithmic bias. Without careful planning, most datasets consist of unstructured data acquired through observational measures, lacking rigorous methods in controlled environments (McFarland and McFarland, 2015). When algorithms play a role in decision-making, underrepresented individuals are unequally positioned. Furthermore, as AI improves the algorithm, the model accommodates the lack of representation, reducing sensitivity to the underrepresented groups.

Personality

The comprehensive analysis produces an overview of AI-driven recruitment applications and recognition frameworks. In order to ensure the credibility of the interview results, the method adopted in this study is to use a uniform way of asking questions to different interviewees. Too long an interval will reduce the effectiveness of feedback on the questions. Also, interviews should not span more than one month to ensure the timeliness of the information obtained. The interview data of 10 interviewees were imported and, using the software, parsed word by word to clarify the meaning of words and sentences, give an interpretation of the data, and obtain free nodes. The data from each section was summarized and inferred to organize the interviewees’ perceptions of AI-driven recruitment, and each node was given a name to derive the first-level nodes.

In 2019, the European Commission established a high-level expert group on AI, which proposed ethical guidelines and self-regulatory measures regarding AI and ethics. To ensure transparency and accountability in recruitment, third-party certification and testing of AI products can help mitigate the negative impacts of unreliability. At the “Ethics and Artificial Intelligence” technical conference held at Carnegie Mellon University, the director of Microsoft Research Institute proposed a solution to ensure consistent standards and transparency in AI. Microsoft’s proposal, “Allowing third-party testing and comparison,” aims to uphold the integrity of AI technology in the market (Ong, 2019). In September 2018, Google introduced the innovative What-If tool for detecting bias (Mishra, 2022). It assists designers in identifying the causes of misclassification, determining decision boundaries, and detecting algorithmic fairness through interactive visual interfaces.

It turns hiring into a depersonalized process, it inundates hiring managers, and it reinforces weaknesses in the system it’s designed to improve. Recruiting chatbots are „taking over the more mundane parts of the recruiting process,“ said Evelyn McMullen, an analyst at Nucleus Research. Chatbots can also provide candidates with updates on their applications, which is important. The company uses Paradox’s ChatGPT App AI tools, including for the development of a virtual assistant, to improve the candidate experience. GM’s chatbot is named EV-e (pronounced „Evie“) and reflects its shift toward electric vehicle production. AI can streamline interview scheduling by automatically coordinating availability, sending reminders and updating calendars—ensuring timely communication between candidates and hiring managers.

Extension of statistical discrimination theory in the digital age

Many performance management systems now include AI capabilities, including suggestions for improving text, sample text for goals and reminders for managers to meet with their direct reports. While these AI-generated communications can provide a good starting point, recruiters must always review the text, especially if the language is for legally binding communication and documents. AI can use past employee questions and its own answers to generate an employee FAQ list. An FAQ document could be helpful for new hires or employees training on a new system. At one point, Brandstetter gave the audience three minutes to use their phones to apply for a job at their own organization. One attendee admitted that she couldn’t get past the log-in screen on her company’s careers site in the allotted time.

It also evaluates employee performance and identifies areas for improvement. The Royal Navy has a new tech tool to deploy in its latest recruitment drive – a conversational AI tool. In a session at the event, Ben Eubanks, analyst at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, argued that, because automation is taking over routine, repetitive work, the remaining tasks become „more human“ for workers. AI may mix up a job candidate and another person with the same name, so HR staff must make sure the technology identified the correct person before using the information. HR should regularly update career paths based on the changing needs of the company to make sure they don’t include out-of-date information. Some new hire content may depend on an employee’s location or department, and AI can help determine which content to send to a new hire.

Klarna CEO says AI can do the job of 700 workers. But job replacement isn’t the biggest issue.

Companies are using artificial intelligence to determine who to hire and fire. It is simultaneously being deployed in various ways to improve recruitment and retention. This includes résumé screenings, candidate matching, interview schedules, probability analysis, performance evaluations and layoff decisions. In order to solve that problem the Royal Navy partnered with Wavemaker to develop and deploy a conversational AI tool. The Royal Navy Virtual Guide will provide applicants with individually tailored journeys, content and nudges as they navigate the application process. Before starting Moonhub, Xu left a PhD in computer science at Stanford, where she worked on foundational models to build AI agents for various applications including customer support at the Stanford AI Lab.

As of mid-2023, just 10% of companies performed AI interviews, but another 34% said they planned on implementing this technology by the end of 2024. Interestingly, 15% of those businesses said AI would handle the entire hiring process. In addition to screening applicants, the chatbot would make the final hiring decision with no human input. Machine learning-enabled tools then search and sort its database of potential job candidates built by crawling through LinkedIn and job recruiting profiles to find and rank the most relevant people. It then uses natural language processing to determine whether candidates‘ email responses suggest they are interested in the opportunity. Candidates want career sites that are easy to use and let them quickly set up a profile, search for jobs and apply.

The algorithms frequently contain these biases due to the lengthy history of racial and gender prejudices, both intentional and unconscious. When biases exist in algorithmic data, AI may replicate these prejudices in its decision-making, a mistake known as algorithmic bias (Jackson, 2021). The idea of machine intelligence dates back to 1950, when Turing, the father of computer science, asked, “Can machines think? Although early scientists made outstanding contributions, artificial intelligence became an industry after the 1980s with hardware development. Initial applications of artificial intelligence were seen in the automation of repeated and complicated work assignments, like industrial robot production, that displaced human work in some plants. After the mid-1990s, artificial intelligence software saw significant advances.

The Virtual Recruiter is an AI chatbot available 24/7 to engage with job seekers visiting ClearCompany clients‘ career sites. As job seekers explore open roles on the career site, the Virtual Recruiter then prompts them to complete an application by answering questions or uploading their resume. The Virtual Recruiter instantly gathers candidate contact information and guides them through the application process from start to finish.

Its conversational AI bot enables candidates to receive answers to FAQs, learn from employee-generated videos and schedule interviews in over 20 languages. It then infers related adjacent skills the applicant may not have noted explicitly. The digital assistant integrates with communication platforms such as SMS text messaging, web chat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Microsoft Teams.

Some recruitment platforms have AI capabilities that can pull candidate information from publicly available social media and websites and build a comprehensive candidate profile. This ability can save recruiters time and add a lot of information to a candidate profile. A vendor first trains AI with a base set of knowledge, then ChatGPT as new data is added, AI expands its knowledge. For example, if a user indicates that a chatbot’s information was unhelpful, the AI system records the response and may offer a different reply the next time. In large organizations, less time is spent on what really creates value for employees, customers and shareholders.

“Theoretically, a candidate could go through the entire attraction, screening, interviewing and selection process without talking to a human once,” Summers said. This happens more often when hiring hourly workers or those candidates whose skills could be verified in a background screening process. It depends on who a company is trying to hire, and whether chat-to-hire bots enhance instead of detract from the hiring process. Companies in the space say chat-to-apply bots can help candidates; “It’s all about the applicant experience and meeting them where they are,” according to Nico Roberts, chief business officer at hiring platform Fountain. While chatbots may be most commonly known as a way to receive customer service help, they are increasingly part of the recruiting process for some employers. The extent to which AI will play a role in hiring and onboarding is unclear.

She also ran a recruiting firm where she learned about the difficulties of finding quality candidates in a short span of time, which eventually led her to create the startup. L’Oréal is using chatbot technology developed by Mya Systems, a San Francisco-based firm that developed its own AI technology. Some AI in HR vendors use chatbot technology platforms developed by Google, IBM, Microsoft and others. But Mya decided against commercial licensing a third-party system in favor of building its own AI chatbot platform, said Eyal Grayevsky, co-founder and CEO of this firm.

• Eileen Kovalsky, GM’s global head of candidate experience, outlined the company’s recruiting automation strategy at the Gartner ReimagineHR Conference, addressing questions about the role of automation versus human oversight.
• In total, WEF estimated that 75 million jobs may be displaced by the use of machines, but 133 million new roles may emerge as a result of new products and services.
• In the context of the causes of AI-driven hiring discrimination at the third level, F2 suggests that some job seekers are unfamiliar with the hiring interface and how to use it, leading to unfair interviews.

ClearCompany integrates data-driven best practices, expert-informed content, and tailored software tools to recruit, ramp, recognize, and retain employees, uniting people and processes to achieve business success. The benefits of using the Virtual Recruiter include increased efficiency for recruiters and an enhanced candidate experience. It boosts applicant conversion rates, reducing drop-off and shortening time-to-interview from weeks to minutes.

But for startups applying AI technology to ‘fix recruitment’ by making talk cheap (and structured), the patchwork of players and approaches still in play suggests there’s ongoing opportunity to grab a slice of a truly massive market. On the hiring front, the power imbalance between employer and job applicant might even make interfacing with a bot more appealing for a candidate than the pressure of talking to an actual human who already works at the target employer. In a 2023 Capterra survey of 300 human resources leaders, 98% of surveyed HR executives said they … Since launching in January, Moonhub has onboarded more than 100 customers including billion-dollar startups like Inflection and Anthropic as well as other startups like Atomic AI, Hippocratic AI and You.com Xu told Forbes. Within a year since launch, the startup has booked more than $1 million in revenue, Xu said, but the purpose of the capital infusion is to improve the AI product and to expand the team.

One answer, then, as to why the interview remains in the hiring process, is that it massages the egos of recruiters. I think that this might also explain another puzzle – a fad for off-the-wall questions that have nothing to do with the job. Recruiters should consider soft skills, such as time management and critical thinking, as well as hard skills. Companies‘ diversity and inclusion initiatives also affect talent acquisition and recruitment.

An AI avatar is a digital representation of a human or character designed specifically to interact with users in a lifelike manner, according to Son. They use AI tech to replicate human speech, expressions and even gestures and can „naturally“ engage with real people. You can foun additiona information about ai customer service and artificial intelligence and NLP. There’s the added benefit that avatars can provide continuous customized information and support regardless of the hour, in multiple languages and using different accessibility features depending on the applicant. Powered by the observations of 3 billion events per year, a network of over 100 million candidates, 8 thousand recruiters, 2 million employees, and 20 million job openings, observations are turned into 10 thousand markers.

Meanwhile, a new report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) said that nearly half of companies expect that automation will lead to some reduction in their full-time workforces by 2022. In total, WEF estimated that 75 million jobs may be displaced by the use of machines, but 133 million new roles may emerge as a result of new products and services. To make an AI business case, Bhoite compared email addresses of job applicants in the U.K. With their brand customer relationship management (CRM) databases and found that 17% of those candidates were already registered with their different brands. Some recruitment platforms include the capability for AI to perform an interview with a candidate.