Mostly not yet. A Gartner survey of 2,918 job candidates found only 26% trust AI to evaluate them fairly, even though 52% believe AI already screens their applications. Trust improves when employers disclose AI use early, ask job-related questions, keep a person on every rejection, and can explain each outcome.
The gap matters for a practical reason. Candidates who distrust the process leave it. They skip the AI call or accept an offer from an employer that felt more human. The same Gartner survey found 25% of candidates trust an employer less if it uses AI to evaluate them.
Why do candidates distrust AI interviews?
Four themes come up repeatedly.
The black box. Candidates answer questions and get a rejection with no explanation.
The surprise. They learned an AI was involved only when the call started, or afterwards. Greenhouse's 2026 survey found 70% of candidates who had an AI interview were not clearly told.
The dead end. They believe no person will ever see their answers.
The unfamiliar format. Many candidates have never done a structured AI interview, so they do not know what to expect.
None of these is about the AI's accuracy. They are about transparency, control and preparation, which you can fix.
What do regulators expect?
Much the same things candidates ask for. The EU AI Act classes AI used to recruit or evaluate candidates as high-risk. After the 2026 Digital Omnibus amendment, those obligations, including human oversight and informing candidates, apply from 2 December 2027. New York City requires a bias audit and candidate notice, and Illinois requires notice when AI is used in hiring decisions.
Building for trust and building for compliance turn out to be largely the same project. For more detail, see Is It Legal to Use AI to Interview Candidates in 2026?
Six practices that build trust
1. Disclose before the first question. When you schedule the interview, say it is run by AI, roughly how long it takes, what it asks and what happens to the recording.
2. Ask questions a person would ask. Write your own question bank for the role and keep the call to 10 to 20 minutes.
3. Let candidates choose the time. An interview they can take at 11pm on a Sunday works around a notice period or a current job.
4. Let them practise. A free mock interview before the real one reduces anxiety and gives you cleaner answers.
5. Keep a person on every rejection. Use AI to transcribe, score and rank. Have a person read the transcript and scores before anyone is told no.
6. Be able to explain the outcome. If a candidate asks why they were not shortlisted, point to a specific criterion and a specific answer. That needs a full transcript and per-question scores, not a single number.
What does a good process look like for the candidate?
A candidate applies on Tuesday evening. Within minutes they get a message saying the first step is a short AI phone interview about two or three skills from the job description, that a recruiter reviews every transcript, and that a practice interview is available.
They take the call on Wednesday morning in the language they are most comfortable in. On Thursday a recruiter who has read the transcript invites them to a live interview, or sends a short note on why not.
Nothing in that sequence is unusual. It is disclosure, relevance, flexibility, practice, human review and a clear explanation.
How GetHirePlus supports this
GetHirePlus AI phone interviews run 24/7 in 8+ languages, and every call produces a transcript with per-question scores, so a recruiter can see what was said and how it was assessed. You write and edit the question bank.
Candidates can take a free AI mock interview before the real screen. Because interviews, AI resume screening and shortlisting sit in one ATS, the human review step is part of the normal workflow.
Sources
Gartner, "Just 26% of Job Applicants Trust AI Will Fairly Evaluate Them" (31 July 2025)
Greenhouse newsroom, 2026 Candidate AI Interview Report
Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 (AI Act), EUR-Lex
Council of the EU, final approval of the AI Digital Omnibus (29 June 2026)