Do you remember your first computer? I do. It lived on a cheap, particle board desk in the corner of my Mom’s bedroom under the window. We were only allowed to use it when she was home. I was probably 12 at the time. To this day, I get excited when I hear that AOL dial tone. It was the sound of being instantly connected to all your friends. The call of the millennial, I guess. 

I don’t know exactly when getting a computer went from a novel moment to a standard of living. I thought I was fancy getting a projector this year. Only people featured on MTV Cribs had those when I was a teenager. In the next 20+ years, I imagine we will have a whole new catalog of novel but eventually normal technologies in our living rooms. 

The Internet itself will evolve, too. Sinead Bovell, one of my favorite thinkers on the future and AI, said in a recent interview with CNBC that this is the last era where people will use the Internet more than AI agents. Think about that. You’re not coding pages for people any more, just for bots to get the easiest intel out of you. Eventually, there may even be more agents than there are people. All the more reason we all need to get familiar with what an AI agent even is. 

Is AI Agent A Fancy Word For Chat Bot? 

When I say AI agent for recruiting, I’m not talking about a chatbot. Agents are an evolved version of the chatbots we all love to hate. A chatbot can only work based on your input and commands.  An AI agent can make the next best decision for you. In real life that might look like a chatbot that can give you a list of restaurants versus an AI agent that can pick a restaurant, book the reservation, add it to your calendar, and invite your girlfriend. 

How? It’s called a ReAct framework - REasoning plus ACTion. It’s considerate of all the data sources and information available. Then, it uses that data to take the action. What’s most interesting to me is that the agent actually tries to make the best decision with the information it has as opposed to the travel agent chatbot I fight with on the United app every time I travel. 

That decision making and the logic involved is also the part I feel most scared about. AI agents sound great when the problem is finding good food. But if we’re making hiring decisions, I have a lot more questions.  I’m sure your legal team will, too. 

AI Agents For Recruiting: Where To Get Started  

For now, AI agents for recruiting are an area where you have to operate with caution and transparency. Caution to only apply technology solutions where they can actually improve the process. 95% of AI pilots failed to deliver a measurable financial return. It’s ok to slow down and make sure you’re actually solving a problem. Transparency is important to ensure anyone on the other end of this experience knows when they’re working with a bot not a real person. Bonus points for telling them why you’re using AI. A simple “we got 300+ applicants” would do. 

The basic rule of thumb with agentic AI for recruiting right now? If you wouldn’t let an intern do it unsupervised, your AI agent shouldn’t either.  Unless you understand each and every step of how it’s making decisions, you’re just creating room for repercussions. Start with something like scheduling interviews. The tedious back and forth of scheduling is so unnecessary and well tested at this point. Plus, if something goes wrong? It’s a missed meeting, not a formal complaint. 

Would You Trust An AI Recruiter? 

As much as we’ve let the threats of legal action and AI consequences scare us, we have to keep an eye on these AI agents. For one thing, everyone at HR Tech was talking about them. And yes, they are coming for your recruiting job. 

The best thing you can do is not to brush them off, but to dive into how they work and ask a lot of questions when any HR technology sales person starts dropping buzzwords. Most of what’s on the market is just a fancy chatbot. For now, at least. 

But you can be sure, this next chapter of evolution for our industry is about more than fitting technology into the way we have always done it. It’s changing the entire role - how we do things and what you have to be good at. You can’t run scared from this change or you’re just going to run out of work. 

I’m just beginning to understand this landscape, the technology available, and how people are already using these AI agents. If you want to learn more, you can trust these resources and smart people for advice. And remember: if the vendor is giving it to you during a demo, their data might be biased. 

Here are a few of the resources I watched, read, and would recommend to anyone looking for more on this topic. 

• This interview on Agentic AI from Gerry Crispin and Chris Hoyt
• Talent Tech Labs makes this really cool graphic of the top vendors in each category of AI, not just agentic; I’ve used these for years (and yes, you have to download it)
• Plug "Agentic AI for Recruiting" into YouTube and watch the shorts!