We’ve got ourselves a bit of a pickle.
We tell candidates they can’t use AI in the interview. Then the Monday they start, we tell them we are AI native. “WHY HAVENT YOU ALREADY SPENT $300,000 IN TOKENS, YOU FECKLESS LUDDITE!!!!!!”
A recruitment agency owner in Manchester told the Guardian this week that you can spot candidates using AI because “It’s like they are reading off an Autocue”. Meanwhile, next week in Vegas, Goodfit will launch an AI Fluency Test at HR Tech to see how well candidates work with AI.
So which is it? Are they cheating, or is it a core skill? Let’s pop the kettle on and work it out.
1. How much cheating is actually going on?
The Institute of Student Employers dropped its Student Recruitment Survey 2026 this week, and it’s grim. 92% of employers suspected or caught misconduct, up from 85% last year and 78% the year before. 66% caught at least one grad using AI in an interview.
To be fair to the grads, there are 141 applications for every graduate role. I’m not saying it’s right, but come on…. its a bloody hellscape out there.
22% of US job seekers in a Resume Genius survey admitted using AI live in interviews. Fabric looked at 19,368 AI-run interviews and flagged 38.5% of candidates. That rose to 48% in software engineering, compared with 12% in sales.
Bare in mind, Fabric sells cheating-detection software, so they might be a smidge motivated to find cheaters.
In Robert Half’s survey, 38% of HR leaders said they’d added extra interviews to verify skills. So we’re adding interview rounds to catch a tool that was meant to make hiring faster. Awesome sauce….
2. Meanwhile, in Silicon Valley….
Meta started running an AI-assisted coding round in October 2025, replacing one of its old algorithm rounds. Canva swapped its CS fundamentals interview for AI-assisted coding in June 2025. Google has been piloting something similar for junior and mid-level engineers.
Canva’s reasoning is pretty refreshing. Candidates were using AI anyway and covert use was hard to spot. Almost half its engineers were using AI coding tools every day already. So they stopped fighting it.
Then there’s Amazon, which told recruiters that candidates may be disqualified for using AI in interviews.
So depending on where you apply, using AI either gets you binned or it’s literally the test. Tad confusing for candidates, methinks.
3. So where’s the line?
Here’s an arbitrary one I ….just made up:
| AI fluency | AI misuse | |
|---|---|---|
| Disclosure | Declared, or allowed by your rules | Hidden |
| Who’s driving | Candidate directs, checks and edits | Candidate reads the answer out |
| Explaining it | Can defend every line | Falls apart at the second “why?” |
| Experience | Sharpens real stories | Makes up stories that never happened |
| Stage | Where you said AI is fine | Where you said it isn’t |
Last year, 45% of employers gave candidates no guidance on AI at all. This year, 82% publish guidance.
4. Is the line moving faster than we can keep up?
Short answer, yes.
Fabric’s cheating flags jumped from 9% to 45% in three months of late 2025. Most of that 82% of employer policies didn’t exist a year ago. The tools are moving quicker than our processes.
My view is to treat your AI interview policy like your comp bands. Write it down and review it every quarter, because it’ll be out of date before you know it.
5. How to run an AI-positive interview
Here’s what I’d try:
- Tell them the rules up front. Put it in the interview invite: which stages AI is fine for, which it isn’t, and why.
- Split the process. Have one conversation about their real experience with the tools closed, and one working session where AI is open. You get to see what they know and how they actually work.
- Hit pause. This is my favourite. Mid-interview, stop and say, “Take two minutes, use whatever tool you like, then talk me through what you’d keep and what you’d bin.” You’re watching their judgement live, which is what you’re hiring for anyway.
- Mark the edit, not the output. Ask what the AI got wrong. Canva treats blindly accepting AI output as a red flag. Nick that.
- Go three levels deep on one story. Who was in the room, what broke, what they’d do differently. Lived detail is really hard to fake in real time.
- Ask about their actual AI workflow, but without relying on previous experience. “Show me something you built with AI last month” actually isn’t a good question as the candidate is then limited to the AI fluency of their current company, not them as individuals, a better question is:
Think about something that you'd love to improve with AI right now. Imagine I gave you 4 hours a week and an infinite tooling budget. What would you improve, and how do you go about improving it?
- Reset before you reject. If you think someone’s using AI on the sly, don’t bin the interview on a hunch. Say what you’re seeing, ask them to close the tab and go again. Nervous people pause, read notes and sound rehearsed. Some very well prepared ND super-stars can also sound rehearsed.
- Practise what you preach. If you’re using AI to screen or score candidates, tell them. 57% of candidates think companies should have to disclose when AI is judging them. I 1,000,000% agree.
For your interview invites
“We use AI every day here, and we expect you will too. In this process, the [stage name] is AI-open: use whatever tools help you, and we’ll ask you to talk us through your choices. The [stage name] is a conversation about your experience, so please leave the tools closed for that one. If you’re unsure, ask. We won’t hold it against you.”
So…
I don’t think anyone has properly cracked this yet, me included. Banning AI outright feels daft when we expect people to use it from day one. A free-for-all with no rules tells you nothing about the candidate. Clear rules plus one AI-open stage is the best I’ve got for now.
If you’ve got a better version, I genuinely want to hear it.
Luke Update
I had a cracking time at Promptmates Live event in London. Joe Atkinson always delivers really well organised events that aren’t all overly long panels, there was a great mix of work and fun.
This week I’ll be donning my kilt and flying to Germany for a wedding. If anyone nows a good place for dinner in Dusseldorf, let me know.
Auf wiedersehen!!
Well... that's issue Eighty Two! If you have any questions about it, or any feedback on this issue of The Data Driven Recruiter, grab me on LinkedIn for a chat.
I'll see you next week!