Your Job Interviewer Is Not a Person. It’s A.I.

When Jennifer Dunn, 54, landed an interview last month through a recruiting firm for a vice president of marketing job, she looked forward to talking to someone about the role and learning more about the potential employer.

Instead, a virtual artificial intelligence recruiter named Alex sent her a text message to schedule the interview. And when Ms. Dunn got on the phone at the appointed time for the meeting, Alex was waiting to talk to her.

“Are you a human?” Ms. Dunn asked.

“No, I’m not a human,” Alex replied. “But I’m here to make the interview process smoother.”

For the next 20 minutes, Ms. Dunn, a marketing professional in San Antonio, answered Alex’s questions about her qualifications — though Alex could not answer most of her questions about the job. Even though Alex had a friendly tone, the conversation “felt hollow,” Ms. Dunn said. In the end, she hung up before finishing the interview.

You might have thought artificial intelligence was coming for your job. First it’s coming for your job interviewer.

Job seekers across the country are starting to encounter faceless voices and avatars backed by A.I. in their interviews. These autonomous interviewers are part of a wave of artificial intelligence known as “agentic A.I.,” where A.I. agents are directed to act on their own to generate real-time conversations and build on responses.