Artificial intelligence is changing when and how Americans interview for jobs, with a growing number of candidates completing automated interviews late at night instead of during traditional business hours, WIRED reports.
About 24% of AI interviews conducted through recruiting software company Ribbon take place between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. local time, according to company data. The figure rises to 35% among Ribbon’s manufacturing clients. More than 500 companies use the service.
Hiring platform Greenhouse is seeing a similar pattern. The company told WIRED that roughly 15% to 20% of candidates using its voice agent schedule interviews at night.
The shift highlights one potential advantage of automated interviews: flexibility. Parents, hourly employees, shift workers, and people who cannot leave their current jobs during the day can interview when their schedules allow.
“This is a genuinely new option for people,” Ribbon Co-Founder Arsham Ghahramani told the outlet, noting that some applicants have limited opportunities to interview during conventional working hours.
But job seekers remain wary of AI’s growing role in hiring.
Greenhouse’s 2026 Candidate AI Interview Report, which surveyed 2,950 active job seekers, found 63% had been interviewed by an AI agent. Thirty-eight percent of U.S. candidates said they had withdrawn from a hiring process because it included an AI interview, while another 12% said they would withdraw if one were required.
Transparency remains a major concern. Greenhouse found 70% of U.S. candidates were not clearly told before their interview that AI would evaluate them. Another 38% wanted confirmation that a person would review AI-generated results before employment decisions were made.
Research suggests automated interviews could also help some candidates advance.
A 2026 field experiment by researchers Brian Jabarian and Luca Henkel randomly assigned 70,000 job applicants to interviews conducted by either human recruiters or AI voice agents, according to WIRED. Applicants interviewed by AI were 12% more likely to receive job offers. Human recruiters evaluated interviews and made the hiring decisions in both groups.
The findings come as employers increasingly turn to AI to screen large applicant pools. While automated interviews can give workers greater control over when they interview, candidate resistance suggests employers also face pressure to clearly explain how the technology is being used and where humans remain involved in hiring decisions.
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