In 2023, the world embraced the transformative power of artificial intelligence (AI) more than ever before. With the explosion of ChatGPT into individuals’ pockets at the end of last year, we’ve seen interest and trust in AI solutions from organizations skyrocket.
The year 2023 stands as a testament to the potential of AI in creating an enriched, unbiased, and empowering hiring experience.
We’ve compiled the highlights that have made this year our most exciting so far – click the button below to immerse yourself in the year that’s been.
The Sapia.ai Difference: Our Candidate Experience
Numbers speak louder than words. And our 2023 candidate numbers resound with success. Almost 1.4 million candidates shared their stories this year in a Chat Interview, giving every one of them a fair and equal chance at success.
450,000 candidates completed a Video Interview, giving them the chance to share more about who they are, and enabling hiring teams to ‘meet’ shortlisted candidates at a time that suited them.
Of the candidates who started a Chat Interview, 91.8% completed it, showing that candidates appreciate the opportunity to open up and bring their real and best selves when applying for a job.
The impact that allowing candidates to interview, and receive personalised feedback that they can use in their lives and careers, is huge.
Not only did 96% of candidates find the feedback they received useful, but the follow-on effect to our customer’s brands is a testament to the visionary talent leaders seeing the benefits of investing in their candidate experience.
79% employer brand advocacy and 84% consumer brand advocacy show how a candidate’s experience with AI, when curated in a respectful, low-pressure way, can positively impact your consumer brand.
Reducing Bias: A Key Achievement in 2023
One of the most significant pillars of our mission that we’re proud of is our unwavering commitment to reducing bias in the hiring process. In 2023, we’ve made substantial strides in ensuring that every candidate gets a fair chance, regardless of their background, making the hiring process more equitable and just.
In March of 2023, independent research was published that underscored the transformative impact of Sapia.ai in workplaces. The study highlighted how our platform significantly reduces the gender gap in technology hiring, a traditionally male-dominated sector. This research serves as a testament to our commitment to fostering diversity and inclusion, and our unwavering pursuit to level the playing field in the recruitment process.
The strides we’ve made with Sapia.ai are not just about challenging the status quo; they are about shaping a future where opportunities are boundless, and talent is recognized, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, age, or any other irrelevant piece of information about a person other than their potential to perform in the role.
Customer Impact: The True Measure of Our Success
Our customer’s satisfaction is the heartbeat of Sapia.ai. And in 2023, the pulse is strong. Our customer testimonials echo our commitment to excellence in the hiring process. They tell a story of transformed hiring experiences, saved time and resources, and how Sapia.ai has been a game-changer for businesses.
You can read our testimonials in our Year in Review highlight here.
By automating the screening and assessment of candidates, we’ve made a remarkable difference in streamlining the recruitment process. This year, we’re proud to share that we’ve saved each recruiter and hiring manager who uses Sapia.ai almost 30 hours per month. This has not only led to improved efficiency but has allowed hiring teams to focus more on their people. The time saved translates to increased productivity, enhanced candidate experience, and a more personable approach to hiring.
New Customer Partnerships: Strengthening Our Reach in 2023
This year, we had the pleasure of welcoming some esteemed brands to our growing network. These organizations are not just our valued clients; they are visionary leaders who embrace Responsible AI to make the hiring process better and more equitable.
We’re proud to collaborate with Kmart and Target Australia, global entities renowned for their commitment to diversity and fairness. Starbucks Australia, another of our prestigious customers, is making strides in efficient, responsible hiring practices with our platform. We’re also excited about our global partnerships with Joe & the Juice, a dynamic and innovative brand with a presence across the UK, Europe, and the US; Edge, an American organization known for its forward-thinking leadership; and Ecentric Payments, a pioneer in the South African digital payment solutions sector.
These partnerships demonstrate our shared vision to transform the hiring landscape, making it fairer and more efficient for all.
Expanding Our Integrations in 2023
This year, we also made meaningful strides in strengthening our partnerships with other major organizations in the HR space.
We’re thrilled to announce the successful completion of our integrations this year with SAP SuccessFactors, LiveHire, iCIMS, and Avature.
These partnerships have been instrumental in expanding our reach and capabilities. Through these integrations, we can now offer a seamless, comprehensive experience encompassing every stage of the hiring process for users of these platforms.
This simplifies the recruitment workflow and ensures a smooth, hassle-free journey for both candidates and hiring teams.
Product Innovations of 2023
In April we introduced our multilingual capability, starting with French and Spanish, and rapidly expanding to Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Italian, and Swedish. This significant expansion in our language offering for candidates facilitates easier communication for speakers of languages other than English fostering inclusivity and paving the way for a more diverse talent pool. The ability to accommodate various languages is instrumental in meeting our goal of making hiring equitable and accessible on a global scale.
In July we uplifted the review section of our Video Interviews, enabling a panel-style review process with multi-assessor capability. With new permissions sets that ensure hiring managers can only see their ratings, this feature helps to reduce the possibility of conformity bias, encouraging hiring managers to rate candidates solely based on their perspective and not be influenced by others’ opinions.
Also in July, we achieved a significant milestone with the development of our first proprietary large language model, which played a crucial role in the creation of our innovative Artificially Generated Text Detector. This language model, built with advanced machine-learning techniques, represents a significant leap forward in our commitment to innovation in AI. It can differentiate human-like text from artificially generated text, thanks to our large collection of human answers.
The detector can efficiently and effectively scan for artificial content, created with tools like ChatGPT. This innovative feature has been instrumental in ensuring the authenticity of our Chat Interview, reducing plagiarism by an astounding 78% almost overnight. By curbing plagiarism, we ensure each candidate has a fair opportunity to showcase their unique skills and competencies; and preserve the integrity of our platform in maintaining fairness in the recruitment process.
In October we launched Talent Hub, a game-changing feature that has accelerated the shortlisting process for recruiters and hiring managers. This tool provides a central hub for all Sapia.ai insights and data, reducing the clicks to review and progress a candidate by an impressive 75%. Now, the entire recruitment process is faster, smoother, and more efficient than ever before.
This month we released SMS reminders, which will help to boost our already industry-leading completion rates, enabling our customers to assess a broader talent pool.
Lastly, one of the most exciting innovations to have kicked off in 2023 was the proof of concept of Phai, our career site chatbot powered by generative AI.
Our customers have been crying out for us to bring the power of chat earlier in the candidate journey, connecting with candidates on a personalized level from the moment they land on the career site. Phai is the first step in this direction, with general availability slated for Q1, 2024; and a roadmap of functionality planned that will elevate the candidate experience even further.
To interact with Phai, simply click the chat button on the bottom left of your browser window.
Global Recognition: Our Scientific Research
In 2023, our efforts in scientific research and practical application of AI garnered global recognition, amplifying our commitment to innovation and responsible AI. We were profoundly honored to have had the opportunity to present four research papers at the 2023 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) annual conference, the leading global event for I/O psychologists.
This recognition underscores our dedication to rigorous scientific research and our quest for knowledge, driving us to continue exploring new frontiers. We are also thrilled to announce the news that 6 research papers from Sapia.ai have been accepted for presentations at the 2024 SIOP conference and a poster at the NVIDIA GTC conference, one of the leading venues for showcasing Gen AI innovations.
Moreover, our work has been acknowledged by the National AI Centre in Australia, emphasized in a recent paper on the country’s expanding AI ecosystem. This recognition serves as a testament to our impactful contributions to the Responsible AI ecosystem in Australia and beyond. It also highlights our pivotal role in shaping the future of AI and its practical applications, further reinforcing our commitment to enhancing the recruitment process using ethical AI.
Looking Forward to 2024
As we reflect on an extraordinary 2023, we’re filled with immense gratitude for our partnerships, innovations, and recognitions that have shaped the year.
Leaping into 2024, we have some incredibly exciting plans shaping up that will elevate the experience for candidates and hiring teams and move us closer to achieving our mission of using ethical AI to make hiring fairer, more efficient, and more effective.
Related
Blog
The AGC Debate: Are AI-Written Interview Answers a Red Flag or Smart Strategy?
Every day, we read stories of increased fake or AI-assisted applications. Tools like LazyApply are just one of many flooding the market, driving up applicant volumes to never-before-seen levels.
As an overwhelmed hiring function, how do you find the needle in the haystack without using an army of recruiters to filter through the maze?
At Sapia.ai, we help global enterprises do just that. Many of the world’s most trusted brands, such as Qantas Group, have relied on our hiring platform as a co-pilot for better hiring since 2020.
Our Chat Interview has given millions of candidates a voice they wouldn’t have had – enabling them to share in their own words why they’re the best fit for the role. To find the people who belong with their brands, our customers must trust that their candidates represent themselves. Thus, they want to trust that our AI is analysing real human answers—not answers from a machine.
The Rise of GPT
When ChatGPT went viral in November 2022, we immediately adopted a defensive strategy. We had long been flagging plagiarised candidate responses, but then, we needed to act fast to flag responses using artificially generated content (‘AGC’).
Many companies were in the same position, but Sapia.ai was the only company with a large proprietary data set of interview answers that pre-dated GPT and similar tools: 2.5 billion words written by real humans.
That data enabled us to build a world-first:- an LLM-based AGC detector for text-based interviews, recently upgraded to v2.0 with 99% accuracy and a false positive rate of 1%. An NLP classification model built on Sapia.ai proprietary data that operates across all Sapia.ai chat interviews.
Full Transparency with Candidates
Because we value candidate trust as much as customer trust, we wanted to be transparent with candidates about our ability to detect artificially generated content (AGC). As an LLM, we could identify AGC in real time and warn candidates that we had detected it.
This has had a powerful impact on candidate behaviour. Since our AGC detector went live, we have seen that the real-time flagging acts as a real-time disincentive to use tools like ChatGPT to generate interview responses.
The detector generates a warning if 3 or more answers are flagged as having artificially generated content. The Sapia.ai Chat Interview uses 5 open-ended interview questions for volume hiring roles, such as retail, contact centre, and customer service, and 6 questions for professional roles, such as engineers, data scientists, graduates, etc.
Let’s Take a Closer Look at the Data…
We see that using our AGC detector LLM to communicate live with candidates in the interview flow when artificial content has been detected has a positive effect on deterring candidates from using AI tools to generate their answers.
The rate of AGC use declines from 1 question flagged to 5 questions – raising the flag on one question is generally enough to deter candidates from trying again.
The graph below shows the number of candidates, from a total of almost 2.7m, that used artificially generated content in their answers.
Differences in AGC Usage Rate by Groups
We see no meaningful differences in candidate behaviour based on the job they are applying for or based on geography.
However, we have found differences by gender and ethnicity – for example, men use artificially generated content more than women. The graph below shows the overall completion ratios by gender – for all interviews on the left and for interviews where the number of questions with AGC detected is 5 or more on the right.
Perception of Artificially Generated Content by Hirers.
We’re curious to understand how hirers perceive the use of these tools to assist candidates in a written interview. The creation of the detector was based on the majority of Sapia.ai customers wanting transparency & explainability around the use of these tools by candidates, often because they want to ensure that candidates are using their own words to complete their interviews and they want to avoid wasting time progressing candidates who are not as capable as their chat interview suggests.
However, some of our customers feel that it’s a positive reflection of the candidate, showing that they are using the tools available to them to put their best foot forward.
It’s a mix of perspectives.
Our detector labels it as the use of artificially generated content. It’s up to our customers how they use that information in their decision-making processes.
This concept of having a human in the loop is one of the key dimensions of ethical AI, and we ensure that it is used in every AI-related hiring product we build.
Interested in the science behind it all? Download our published research on developing the AGC detector 👇
Research Paper Download: AI Generated Content in Online Text-based Structured Interviews
Blog
Joe & the Juice Partners with Sapia.ai, Scaling an Exceptional Candidate Experience and Cutting Time to Hire
Read the full press release about the partnership here.
Joe & the Juice, the trailblazing global juice bar and coffee concept, is renowned for its vibrant culture and commitment to cultivating talent. With humble roots from one store in Copenhagen, now with a presence in 17 markets, Joe & The Juice has built a culture that fosters growth and celebrates individuality.
But, as their footprint expands, so does the challenge of finding and hiring the right talent to embody their unique culture. With over 300,000 applications annually, the traditional hiring process using CVs was falling short – leaving candidates waiting and creating inefficiencies for the recruitment team. To address this, Joe & The Juice turned to Sapia.ai, a pioneer in ethical AI hiring solutions.
A Fresh Approach to Hiring
Through this partnership, Joe & The Juice has transformed its hiring process into an inclusive, efficient, and brand-aligned experience. Instead of faceless CVs, candidates now engage in an innovative chat-based interview that reflects the brand’s energy and ethos. Available in multiple languages, the AI-driven interview screens for alignment with the “Juicer DNA” and the brand’s core values, ensuring that every candidate feels seen and valued.
Candidates receive an engaging and fair interview experience as well as personality insights and coaching tips as part of their journey. In fact, 93% of candidates have found these insights useful, helping to deliver a world-class experience to candidates who are also potential guests of the brand.
“Every candidate interaction reflects our brand,” Sebastian Jeppesen, Global Head of Recruitment, shared. “Sapia.ai makes our recruitment process fair, enriching, and culture-driven.”
Results That Matter
For Joe & The Juice, the collaboration has yielded impressive results:
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33% Reduction in Screening Time: Pre-vetted shortlists from Sapia.ai’s platform ensure that recruiters can focus on top candidates, getting them behind the bar faster.
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Improved Candidate Satisfaction: With a 9/10 satisfaction score from over 55,000 interviews, candidates appreciate the fairness and transparency of the process.
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Bias-Free Hiring: By eliminating CVs and integrating blind AI that prioritizes fairness, Joe & The Juice ensures their hiring reflects the diverse communities they serve.
Frederik Rosenstand, Group Director of People & Development at Joe & The Juice, highlighted the transformative impact: “Our juicers are our future leaders, so using ethical AI to find the people who belong at Joe is critical to our long-term success. And now we do that with a fair, unbiased experience that aligns directly with our brand.”
Trailblazing for the hospitality industry
In an industry so wholly centred on people, Joe & the Juice is paving the way for similar brands to adopt technology that enables inclusive, human-first experiences that can reflect a brand’s core values.
If you’re curious about how Sapia.ai can transform your hiring process, check out our full case study on Joe & The Juice here.
Blog
Sapia.ai Wrapped 2024
It’s been a year of Big Moves at Sapia.ai. From welcoming groundbreaking brands to achieving incredible milestones in our product innovation and scale, we’re pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in hiring.
And we’re just getting started 🚀
Take a look at the highlights of 2024
All-in-one hiring platform
This year, with the addition of Live Interview, we’re proud to say our platform now covers screening, assessing and scheduling.
It’s an all-in-one volume hiring platform that enables our customers to deliver a world-leading experience from application through to offer.
Supercharging hiring efficiency
Every 15 seconds, a candidate is interviewed with Sapia.ai.
This year, we’ve saved hiring managers and recruiters hours of precious time that can now be used for higher-value tasks.
Giving candidates the best experience
Our platform allows candidates to be their best selves, so our customers can find the people that truly belong with them. They’re proud to use a technology that’s changing hiring, for good.
Leading the way in AI for hiring
We’ve continued to push the boundaries in leveraging ethical AI for hiring, with new products on the way for Coaching, Internal Mobility & Interview Builders.