AI interview agents: sixteen you can buy, five that can act without a recruiter
Sixteen AI interview agents run a first-round interview today. Ribbon and HeyMilo lead volume hiring. CodeSignal leads technical roles. Published entry prices run from $79 a month to $499 a month. Five of the sixteen can move or reject a candidate with no recruiter looking first. One only does this for a missed deadline. A sixth vendor’s own pages disagree. Check which setting is on before you sign.
Each of the sixteen gives recruiters a score and a transcript. Every vendor in this market says a person still decides who moves a candidate forward.
HeyMilo, Humanly, Maki, Apriora and Metaview can act on their own
Apriora puts the usual promise plainly. “No candidate is auto-rejected by AI. Hiring teams can challenge, override, or disregard AI outputs at any point.” HeyMilo says the final decision always stays with a recruiter, not the AI.
Each of these five also has a setting that acts with no recruiter looking first. Someone on your team has to switch it on.
What each one can be set to do
Seven vendors. Indeed’s is still in beta.- HeyMilo A score that can move or archive a candidate in Workday
“Configure score thresholds in the agent and HeyMilo will request the next-stage move on the Application when a candidate clears the bar, route ambiguous scores to recruiter review, and hold low scores for archive or alternate routing.”
In plain terms, a high score moves the candidate on and a low score archives them. Its rule builder does the same job in Bullhorn and Avionté. In iCIMS, SAP SuccessFactors and SmartRecruiters, a score only moves a candidate forward. That is six systems in total. UKG Pro does not move candidates.
- Humanly A score threshold that decides who goes further
“Optional score threshold (0–100) applied at enrollment to gate candidates before the first step.”
In plain terms, you set a cut-off score. A candidate who scores under it hears nothing more from Humanly. No recruiter has to look at the file first.
- Maki (Mochi) A filter that can reject a candidate
“Mochi may automatically exclude candidates only in very specific and objective cases, such as when a work permit is explicitly required and you confirm that you do not hold one.”
Maki’s product page says no candidate is ever automatically rejected. Both statements are on Maki’s own site. Treat the filter as real. It is a setting you choose.
- Apriora A step that books the next interview once a candidate clears your bar
“When a candidate clears your bar, Alex books them on your team’s calendar instantly, packages a complete briefing with scores and insights, and handles confirmations, reminders, and rescheduling automatically.”
Apriora says elsewhere that no candidate is ever auto-rejected by AI. That is true of rejection. Booking the next interview is the part that runs with no recruiter involved.
- Metaview Screening A setting, off by default, for a missed deadline only
“You always make the final call — Metaview never auto-rejects anyone unless you’ve explicitly turned on rejection at the deadline, and that’s triggered by a missed deadline, never by a rating.”
This setting is not about what a candidate said. A recruiter still reads and rates every finished interview. It only fires when a candidate never finishes one at all, and only once someone turns it on.
- Tengai One page says it decides alone, others say a person does
“Psychometric experts tested our framework and validated that Tengai independently can screen and recommend job-seekers, without any human interference.”
Tengai’s other pages say a person always makes the final call. Get Tengai to state in the contract which one is true.
- Indeed Smart Screening The same kind of action, still in beta
“Employers, and not Indeed, decide their own job requirements, screening and scoring instructions, which tools or features to use (including score-based automations and ATS delivery settings), and which jobs to enroll for Smart Screening.”
In plain terms, Indeed builds the tool, but every automatic action is one an employer switches on. It is not for sale yet, so it does not count among the sixteen you can buy.
The law looks at how the tool is actually set up. In the UK, the rules on decisions made without a person changed on 5 February 2026. In the EU, the duties for high-risk hiring systems start on 2 December 2027. Reading a candidate’s emotions from their face or voice has been banned in the EU since 2 February 2025.
Two of six hiring jobs are not this market
There are six common reasons to buy an interview agent. For two of them, the better answer is to spend the money elsewhere.
Screen thousands of applicants for hourly roles
Volume productMost of this market is built for this job. These tools charge by the interview or by the month, not by how many people use them. They run at any hour. They connect to applicant tracking systems such as Workday and Greenhouse. Ribbon, HeyMilo, Apriora, Humanly and Employment Hero all sell for this job.
Run the first round for professional or early-career roles
Enterprise platformThis job has fewer candidates, and each one gets a closer look. Buying one of these usually means a procurement process. HireVue, Eightfold and Talview sell for this job, each as part of a bigger hiring platform. None of the three publishes a price.
Interview for technical roles
Testing platformCodeSignal, HackerRank, Glider AI and Talview Ivy started as testing tools and now interview candidates too. Talview built exam checks before it built Ivy. If your engineers already run a coding test, the interview can sit next to it. One of the four publishes a price. CodeSignal’s own contract defines the service as screening software developers. Its Grow plan adds interviewers for sales, customer success and marketing roles. Read the contract before you use it outside engineering.
Add a screen inside your tracking or HR system
Sold inside other toolsGreenhouse, Employment Hero and Metaview each sell an interviewer inside a bigger product. Check whether you already pay for one of them. If you do, avoid a second tool that sends its results to the same tracking system.
Make your own interviewers more consistent
Not this marketIf eight of your managers each interview a different way, an interview agent will not fix that. It interviews in place of them, before your own people are even involved. What helps instead is a different kind of product. It records the interviews your own people run, then scores them the same way each time.
Ask knockout questions and book the ones who qualify
Not this marketYou may only need five fixed questions and a call booked with whoever passes. If so, a tool that holds a full conversation is more than you need. Paradox and Sapia both do this well. Your recruiters write the questions and set the rules. Neither one responds to what a candidate actually says.
Four sell to you this month with no procurement
Two names buyers are often shown cannot be bought yet. Ashby’s interviewer sits in a private beta behind a waitlist. Ashby’s own terms make no promise that it will ever go on sale. They also let Ashby pull it at any time. Indeed calls its version a beta too. It sells it, in its own words, “in limited quantities and locations.”
Ribbon starts at $499 a month for two recruiters and 100 interviews. Employment Hero starts at A$199 a month for 50 interviews. You do not have to move your HR or payroll onto it. CodeSignal starts at $79 a month, for technical roles only. Metaview starts you with 25 free interviews, then sells packs that expire.
Vendors aimed at larger companies price from your own numbers. Eightfold says its interviewer is built for companies of 1,000 to 5,000 people with small hiring teams. Talview usually wants about 150 to 200 interviews committed before it starts. Maki counts more than 80 global enterprises among its customers.
Before you price anything, check what you already pay for. Almost half of these tools are sold inside another product, such as Greenhouse, Employment Hero or a testing platform. If you already run one of those, the interviewer inside it is the cheapest thing to try. It needs no new contract. A couple of weeks will show whether recruiters use it.
| Product | Sold as | Price | Independent bias audit | What it does with its result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HireVue | Platform | Ask | DCI Consulting, 2023 | Scores only |
| Eightfold | Platform | Ask | NYC Local Law 144, passed | Scores only |
| Talview Ivy | Platform | Ask · needs about 150–200 interviews to start | None published | Scores only |
| Apriora | On its own | Ask · by headcount | Warden AI, monthly | Can book the next step alone |
| HeyMilo | On its own | Shown at signup · per interview | Warden AI, monthly | Can act in six systems |
| Humanly | On its own | Ask | None published | Can act on a score |
| Ribbon | On its own | Published | Holistic AI, annual | Scores only |
| Greenhouse Voice AI | Inside Greenhouse | Ask · by headcount | Warden AI, monthly | Scores only |
| Metaview Screening | Inside Metaview | Ask · per interview | Warden AI, Aug 2026 | Only for a missed deadline |
| Employment Hero | Inside its HR system, or alone | Published | Self-reported only | Scores only |
| CodeSignal | Testing platform | Published | None published | Scores only |
| HackerRank Chakra | Testing platform | Ask · per interview | BABL AI, other HackerRank tools only | Scores only |
| Glider AI | Testing platform | Ask | None published | Scores only |
| Maki Mochi | On its own | Ask · per interview | Holistic AI, Mar 2026 | Can act through a filter |
| Spotted Zebra | Inside its assessment platform | Ask | VerifyWise, Sep 2026 | Scores only |
| Tengai | On its own | Ask | None published | Its own pages disagree |
Every “Can” or “Only” verdict in that column means someone on your team can switch on an action. The software then takes that action by itself. “Scores only” means no such switch is described in that vendor’s own documents. “Its own pages disagree” is Tengai. Check your own contract either way. A new switch can arrive in a future update.
Ribbon for volume, HeyMilo for hands-off screening, CodeSignal for engineers
A product built for 40,000 hourly applicants and a product built for engineering interviews do different jobs. So the sixteen are grouped here by what they are, not ranked.
Four tools sell straight into high-volume hiring
Each one connects to a tracking system and charges by the interview or by the month. Ribbon publishes its price, and what it charges once you go over it. Apriora, HeyMilo and Humanly give you a quote based on your headcount or your hiring volume. Apriora, HeyMilo and Humanly can also act on a candidate’s score by themselves, once that setting is on. On Ribbon, a recruiter makes every call.
Three interviewers come inside products sold for other jobs
Greenhouse Voice AI works deepest inside Greenhouse Recruiting. It is also sold on its own for companies on other tracking systems. Turning it on starts with a support ticket, not a purchase order. Employment Hero sells its interviewer both inside its HR and payroll subscription and on its own. Metaview sells Screening by the interview, alongside its notetaker.
Ashby AI Interviewer and Indeed Smart Screening also fit this group, but neither is for sale yet.
Bought as part of something larger
HireVue and Eightfold each sell interviewing as part of a bigger platform. Their buyers are companies that already run a procurement process. Expect a scoping call, a security review and a quote, not a price on a page.
Four testing tools now interview candidates too
CodeSignal and HackerRank both take the interview out of the same allowance as their tests. If you already hold one of those contracts, a trial can run inside it. Glider sells its interviewer inside a wider skills-testing platform. Talview built exam checks before it built Ivy.
Three European sellers come at interviews from assessment
Tengai works from Sweden, Spotted Zebra from the UK and Maki from France. All three started in assessment, not in recruiting software. Spotted Zebra publishes a bias audit of its interviewer, done under New York City’s rules. Tengai publishes no audit of its own.
Three of sixteen publish a price
Ribbon, CodeSignal and Employment Hero show their prices. The rest work out a number from your headcount or your hiring volume. Some instead sell you a block of interviews up front, which you then use up over time.
Where a tool charges by the interview, the quote shows a rate, not a bill. A role that attracts 2,000 applicants means paying for 2,000 interviews. Your busiest month sets your bill, not your average one.
The audit duty is yours once you sign
The contract sets the audit you publish, how long your data is kept and when it renews.
Before you sign, take the interview yourself on a phone with a poor connection. Read what applicants are asked to agree to before it starts.
The hard parts stay yours whether you build or buy
Building this yourself looks possible. You would still buy the technical parts. These are a voice that sounds like a real person, a transcript, and a score set against a scoring guide. The questions you ask and the scoring guide are yours either way. So is what happens to a candidate at the end, and who checks the results a year later.
A smaller, more realistic build sits on top of your own systems. It would be a structured screen that asks your own questions, plus a transcript scored against your own guide. A summary would then go into the candidate’s record.
One thing changes if you build it yourself. The maker’s duties that sit with a vendor today would move to you. Under the EU AI Act, that happens from 2 December 2027. Your duties as the employer stay the same either way.
Here is what building it looks like, agent by agent, with the data each one needs and who decides. The HR Agent Map
Ribbon, HeyMilo or CodeSignal, or nothing at forty screens a month
Ribbon publishes its price, and a recruiter still decides every candidate. Its terms let it train its AI on your interview recordings. Get an opt-out from that training written into the contract.
HeyMilo has no minimum size or contract, and can run the screening step on its own. Once that setting is on, it can also reject a candidate on its own.
Look at Greenhouse Voice AI first. It works inside Greenhouse, and the fee scales with your headcount. Humanly comes second. It can move a candidate forward on its own once you set a score.
Start with CodeSignal. If your team already uses HackerRank, add HackerRank Chakra instead. CodeSignal’s Pro plan is the only one that links to Workday, iCIMS or Oracle. It has no public price. The four sellers that grew out of skills testing.
HireVue, Maki and Apriora run inside those systems. Eightfold runs inside Oracle. None of the four publishes a price. HireVue raises its price 10% a year unless you cancel in writing 60 days before renewal. Our shortlist for enterprise companies.
Maki fits first, with European hosting and languages. Its filters can reject a candidate automatically. Name one person on your team to control that setting. Tengai fits Nordic hiring. It speaks Swedish or English, and translates questions into Norwegian and Danish. How the answer shifts for European and UK hiring.
Employment Hero and Metaview Screening need no new contract. Employment Hero’s interview only runs in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Buy nothing yet. At that volume, most of Ribbon’s 100 interviews a month would go unused. None of these contracts gets cheaper by signing early.
Neither is for sale yet. Both are in a private beta. Ask for a launch date, not another demo. Also ask what happens to interviews you already ran if the beta ends.
Start with the sellers that show a price and let you begin with one role. Our shortlist for mid-market companies.
Every product there answers the same ten questions, from how the interview runs to what the candidate is told. The full comparison.
Two products a buyer will meet in this market are described here but have no page of their own, because neither can be licensed yet: Ashby's AI Interviewer and Indeed Smart Screening. Paradox and Sapia are named as neighbours rather than as members of this market: both screen with questions your recruiters write, and neither responds to what a candidate says in the moment.