AI in HR and Recruiting Statistics 2026: Use, Trust and Rules

Just 39% of organizations have implemented AI in their HR functions, with another 7% planning to do so this year, according to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Where AI is being used, adoption is concentrated in recruiting (27%), HR technology (21%), and learning and development (17%). SHRM’s data draws on insights from 1,908 HR professionals. These AI in HR and recruiting statistics cover both sides of the hire: employer adoption, candidate trust, AI interviews, fraud and the rules now attached to hiring tools.

Job candidates read the same tools very differently. Only one-quarter (26%) of job candidates trust AI will fairly evaluate them, according to a 1Q25 Gartner survey of 2,918 job candidates. Among US job seekers, nearly two-thirds (63%) have now been interviewed by an AI, according to the Greenhouse 2026 Candidate AI Interview Report.

Key Takeaways

• 56% of HR functions do not formally measure the success of their AI investments, and only 16% use return on investment (ROI) as a metric.
• Seven in every ten (70%) US hiring managers say AI helps them make faster and better hiring decisions, yet only 8% of candidates believe AI makes hiring more fair.
• In Greenhouse’s 2026 survey of US job seekers, the majority of candidates (70%) were never clearly told upfront that AI would be evaluating them, and 57% believe disclosure should be a legal requirement.
• 57% of HR professionals in states with workforce-related AI regulations are not aware of those rules.
• New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) surveyed websites and bias audits of 32 companies and identified just a single issue of non-compliance, while state auditors identified at least 17 instances of potential non-compliance at the same companies.
• EU rules for high-risk AI systems in Annex III, which covers AI used for recruitment, apply starting December 2, 2027.
• 57% of organizations are seeing increased upskilling and reskilling opportunities from AI, while just 7% report job displacement.

Editor’s Choice

• Organizations using AI in their HR functions: 39%.
• Large organizations’ AI adoption: 60% at organizations with 5,000+ employees.
• Job candidates who used AI to apply: 39% in a 4Q24 Gartner survey.
• US recruiters who have spotted candidate deception: 91%.
• HR professionals reporting improved efficiency from AI: 87%.
• US job seekers who walked away from a hiring process over an AI interview: 38%.
• Workday total revenues, fiscal 2026: $9.552 billion, an increase of 13.1% from fiscal 2025.

AI in HR and Recruiting Statistics: How Many Organizations Use AI

• Just 39% of organizations have implemented AI in their HR functions, with another 7% planning to do so this year.
• Another 23% of organizations are deploying AI elsewhere in the business, which leaves roughly one-third with no AI adoption.
• Large organizations (5,000+ employees) lead with 60% adoption, while smaller organizations lag significantly, often constrained by cost, talent, and uncertainty around return on investment.
• By 2025, 73% of HR directors and above were using AI in their work, compared to roughly 65% of managers and individual contributors.
• Less than half of organizations are expected to use AI in HR this year, according to SHRM.
• 56% of HR functions do not formally measure the success of their AI investments, and only 16% use ROI as a metric.

Source: SHRM, State of AI in HR 2026 research

In total, 62% of organizations are using AI somewhere in the business, signaling that HR risks lagging behind broader enterprise adoption. Nearly one-third (31%) have no plans to launch AI initiatives.

How is AI used in HR?

Where it is being used, AI adoption in HR is concentrated in a few areas: recruiting, HR technology, and learning and development. Within HR, the top use case for AI or generative AI (GenAI) is talent acquisition, according to a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey of chief human resources officers (CHROs) in 2024.

About This Data

Compiled from 17 sources: 8 company surveys and results releases, 5 government and regulator pages, and 4 research and professional body reports. Sources date from April 2023 to September 2026. Only primary publishers and named survey owners qualified; market-research sellers were excluded. Figures are reviewed on a rolling basis and updated when sources publish new editions.

AI in Recruitment: Use in Talent Acquisition

• Where AI is being used in HR, adoption is concentrated in a few areas, including recruiting (27%).
• CHROs face a growing competitive divide, particularly in areas such as recruiting and HR technology, where speed and experience matter most.
• If a company is experimenting with AI or GenAI, 70% of them are doing so within HR, according to BCG’s 2024 survey.
• Gartner predicts that by 2027, 75% of hiring processes will include certifications and tests for workplace AI proficiency.

BCG’s 2024 figures below count only companies already using AI in HR. Content creation, such as writing job descriptions, and administrative tasks, such as scheduling interviews, are the most popular use cases for AI within recruiting.

Source: Boston Consulting Group survey of CHROs, 2024

Recent Developments

• September 22, 2026: Gartner published its Voice of the Candidate Survey Analysis (2Q26), covering AI in the hiring process and candidate fraud and misrepresentation.
• August 27, 2026: Workday reported total revenues of $2.649 billion, an increase of 12.8% from the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
• August 27, 2026: More than 5,500 customers now use one or more of Workday’s organic agents, up more than 35% from last quarter.
• August 2, 2026: The AI Act became applicable, with some exceptions, including rules for high-risk use cases in Annex III that have been extended to December 2, 2027.
• July 27, 2026: The AI Omnibus entered into force across the EU, extending timelines so that rules for high-risk AI systems in Annex III apply starting December 2, 2027.

How Recruiters and Hiring Managers Rate AI

• Seven in every ten (70%) hiring managers say AI helps them make faster and better hiring decisions with fewer recruiter resources.
• One in every two (50%) recruiters say AI has improved hiring overall, mainly by saving time on screening and scheduling.
• 25% of recruiters admit they’re not confident in their AI systems at all.
• The vast majority of firms (92%) say they are already seeing the benefits, and more than 10% report productivity gains of +30%, according to BCG’s 2024 survey.

Key finding: Seven in every ten (70%) US hiring managers say AI helps them make faster and better hiring decisions, yet only 8% of candidates believe AI makes hiring more fair, Greenhouse found. Hiring managers credit AI with faster, better decisions while few candidates see it as fairer, a gap that shows up again in the candidate figures below.

Candidate Trust in AI Hiring

• Only one-quarter (26%) of job candidates trust AI will fairly evaluate them, even though just over half of candidates (52%) believe AI screens their application information.
• Only half of candidates trusted that the jobs they were applying for were legitimate.
• Almost one in every two (46%) job seekers in the US say their trust in hiring has decreased over the past year, with 42% blaming AI directly.
• Close to one in five (18%) say AI has amplified bias by learning from historical patterns.
• Among US Gen-Z entry-level workers, 62% have lost trust.

Gartner’s candidate survey dates from early 2025, so it predates the newer Greenhouse interview data later on this page.

Do job candidates trust AI in hiring?

About a quarter say they do. Only 26% of job candidates trust AI will fairly evaluate them, and 25% said they trust employers less if they are using AI to evaluate their information, per Gartner. In Greenhouse’s data, only 8% of candidates believe AI makes hiring more fair.

What Candidates Want From AI Hiring

• Only 19% want less AI in hiring; the majority want the same or more, but with guardrails.
• The guardrails job seekers want include the option to request a human interview instead (46%) and upfront disclosure (44%).
• Candidates report nearly identical rates of perceived bias from AI and human interviewers: 36% felt age bias from both, and 27% flagged race or ethnicity bias from both.
• Only 21% believe most employers are using AI responsibly.

Public Opinion on AI Hiring Decisions

• In Pew Research Center’s December 2022 survey, Americans oppose AI use in making final hiring decisions by a 71% to 7% margin, and a majority also opposes AI analysis being used in making firing decisions.
• A smaller plurality (41%) also opposes the use of AI in reviewing job applications.
• Pluralities oppose AI use in determining whether a worker should be promoted.

Source: Pew Research Center survey of 11,004 US adults, December 12 to 18, 2022

Pew’s survey is the oldest dataset on this page and predates the AI interview figures below, so its shares describe attitudes before AI screening became routine for job seekers.

AI Interviews, Disclosure and Drop-Off

• Among US job seekers, nearly two-thirds (63%) have now been interviewed by an AI, up 13 percentage points from six months ago.
• 38% of candidates have walked away from a hiring process because it included an AI interview, and another 12% say they would.
• For one in five (21%), they only found out once the interview started.
• Just 18% say employers have clear AI policies.
• Among those who completed an AI interview, 28% moved forward to the next round, while 13% were formally rejected, and 51% never heard back.
• The biggest triggers for walking away include pre-recorded video interviews scored by AI with no human present (33%).

Why it matters: The majority of candidates (70%) were never clearly told upfront that AI would be evaluating them, yet 57% believe disclosure should be a legal requirement, Greenhouse reports. AI interviews have spread faster than the habit of telling candidates about them, and a majority of job seekers want the law to close that gap.

How Job Seekers Use AI

• A 4Q24 Gartner survey of 3,290 job candidates found that four in 10 candidates (39%) said they used AI during the application process.
• Of those, 54% used it to generate text for their résumé or CV.
• Of the 1,200 US job seekers surveyed, 41% admit to using prompt injections, hidden text designed to bypass AI filters, and of those who don’t, 52% say they are considering it.
• 69% encountered fake job postings, and nearly half (49%) submitted more applications than a year ago.
• Over half (54%) have encountered an AI-led interview.

Hiring Fraud and Candidate Deception

• Over nine in every ten (91%) recruiters have spotted candidate deception, and 34% spend up to half their week filtering spam and junk applications.
• Two in every three (65%) hiring managers have caught applicants using AI deceptively, such as reading from AI-generated scripts (32%).
• 74% of hiring managers say they’re more concerned about fake credentials, deepfakes, or misrepresented experience than they were a year ago.
• A 2Q25 Gartner survey of 3,000 job candidates found 6% admitted to participating in interview fraud.
• Gartner predicts that by 2028, one in four candidate profiles worldwide will be fake.
• 51% of candidates accepted a job offer in their most recent application process (2Q25), a substantial decline from 2Q23, when 74% accepted.

How AI Is Changing HR Jobs and Productivity

• Just 7% of organizations report job displacement from AI implementation, while 57% are seeing increased upskilling and reskilling opportunities.
• 87% of HR professionals report improved efficiency, 75% improved work quality, and 70% increased creativity.
• More than half of organizations (52%) do not involve HR in AI strategy or vision.
• Only 28% say that HR is leading upskilling efforts, compared to 29% that are led by cross-functional teams.
• A July 2025 Gartner survey of 114 HR leaders found that 27% of organizations have redefined job roles or skills due to AI or emerging technologies in the past 12 months, and 10% have replaced some employees with AI or automation.
• Gartner predicts 50% of current HR tasks will be automated or managed by AI agents by 2030.
• The number of organizations piloting and implementing generative AI has surged from 19% to 61% in just two years, per Gartner surveys of 197 HR leaders in June 2023 and January 2025.

NYC Local Law 144 Statistics

• DCWP began enforcement of the law and rule on July 5, 2023.
• DCWP can impose civil penalties between $500 and $1,500 per day for violations.
• The New York State Comptroller’s audit, issued December 2, 2025, covered the period from July 2023 through June 2025.
• DCWP received only two AEDT complaints during the audit’s scope.

Source: NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection; Office of the New York State Comptroller audit, December 2025

By the numbers: DCWP surveyed websites and bias audits of 32 companies and identified just a single issue of non-compliance. State auditors reviewed the same companies and identified at least 17 instances of potential non-compliance under LL144. The law has been enforceable since mid-2023, yet the city’s own review caught almost none of what state auditors found.

What does NYC Local Law 144 require?

Local Law 144 of 2021 prohibits employers and employment agencies from using an automated employment decision tool (AEDT) unless the tool has been subject to a bias audit within one year of the use of the tool, information about the bias audit is publicly available, and certain notices have been provided to employees or job candidates.

EU AI Act and State AI Hiring Rules

• AI systems intended to be used for the recruitment or selection of natural persons, in particular to place targeted job advertisements, to analyse and filter job applications, and to evaluate candidates, are listed in Annex III.
• CV-sorting software for recruitment is the European Commission’s example of AI tools for employment.
• The AI Act entered into force on August 1, 2024 and became applicable on August 2, 2026, with some exceptions.
• While 49% of organizations have policies in place to regulate AI use among employees, only a quarter believe those policies are future-proof.
• Among HR professionals who are aware of workforce-related AI rules, only 12% have taken steps to ensure compliance.
• Currently, 19 of the most populous states have enacted AI laws or regulations relating to employment.

Source: European Commission, AI Act Service Desk, 2024 to 2026

HR Software Spending Signals

• Workday’s total revenues were $9.552 billion, an increase of 13.1% from fiscal 2025.
• Subscription revenues were $8.833 billion, an increase of 14.5% from the prior year.
• Workday expects fiscal 2027 subscription revenues of approximately $9.925 billion to $9.950 billion, representing 12% to 13% growth.
• In Q2, AI drove more than 25% of Workday’s new annual contract value (ACV).

Source: Workday results releases, February and August 2026

The takeaway: Workday expects fiscal 2027 subscription revenues of approximately $9.925 billion to $9.950 billion, and it is prioritizing investment in its agentic AI roadmap. Workday’s results track one HR software vendor, not total HR technology spending, so they signal demand rather than measure the whole market.

Conclusion

Just 39% of organizations have implemented AI in their HR functions, and only 26% of job candidates trust AI will fairly evaluate them. These AI in HR and recruiting statistics show employers adding AI to hiring faster than candidates are willing to trust it.

New York City’s DCWP received only two AEDT complaints during the audit’s scope, and EU rules for high-risk AI systems in Annex III apply starting December 2, 2027. Until enforcement catches up, disclosure and human review in hiring will stay largely up to employers.