Recruiters have begun encountering an unusual type of candidate in initial interviews: AI-generated avatars that replicate an applicant’s likeness and voice, while the real person is not directly present.
Lana Kersanava, a Sydney-based recruiter, told Semafor that she has seen these digital renders in some of her first-round interviews over the past six months. “At the beginning, it’s like you feel like something is off,” she said. “It looks very realistic.” However, after listening for roughly five minutes to an avatar delivering overly polished answers, Kersanava ended the interview and disqualified the candidate.
In the three interviews Kersanava mentioned, the applicants had applied for English-speaking roles as non-native speakers. According to her, the avatars appeared to be used in part to compensate for limited language proficiency.
This development comes as hiring processes increasingly incorporate automated and AI-driven tools. Applicant tracking systems (ATS) and other automated resume filters are already common, and some recruiters also deploy AI avatars to conduct initial screenings. At the same time, some applicants are turning to AI as a response to a system that feels more machine-driven than human.
The practice raises ethical and practical questions: how can employers reliably distinguish between human and AI-mediated candidates, what disclosure obligations should applicants have, and how does the use of digital surrogates affect the integrity of the hiring process? In Kersanava’s cases the candidates were removed from consideration, but broader adoption of avatar use would likely prompt further policy and procedural discussions.
(Source: report based on Lana Kersanava’s remarks to Semafor; summary by Jake Angelo.)
