HR’s Role in AI Adoption: 5 Takeaways From Our HR Brew Panel

HR Brew invited Workable’s Panayotis Eliopoulos, Senior Recruiter, and Jack Anderson, US Team Lead of Account Management, to break down one of the biggest questions facing talent teams today:

How should HR leaders approach AI in the hiring process in a way that is ethical, practical, and still human-centered?

We covered transparency, LLMs, and what separates consumer AI tools from recruiter-specific AI built inside an ATS.

Below are the main takeaways from the discussion.

1. AI works best when it is built directly into the recruiting process, not added later

• AI is most effective when it supports the full hiring workflow, including sourcing, CV screening, job description creation, and rediscovery of past candidates.
  
• It should operate as a quiet assistant that speeds up repetitive tasks without disrupting the process.
  
• Recruiters still make the final choice. AI improves the pace and quality of decision making, but it does not replace human oversight.

2. Human judgment remains central to hiring

• AI reduces manual work so recruiters can focus on evaluating fit and building relationships with candidates.
  
• As Jack said, “it is not a matter of pressing a button and receiving a hire.”
  
• The aim is always stronger and more efficient hiring, never automated decisions.

3. Trust depends on transparency

• Ethical AI begins with clear internal frameworks.
  
• Candidates expect clarity on:
  
  • When AI is used
    
  • Where it appears in the hiring process
    
  • How it influences decisions
    
  • When a human is involved
    
• Organizations that communicate openly build stronger trust with both candidates and employees.

4. Recruiter-focused AI outperforms general-purpose tools

• Tools like ChatGPT need significant context to generate accurate results, which can be impractical and may create compliance risks when handling candidate data.
  
• AI built into an ATS already understands the job, the data, past patterns, and compliance rules.
  
• Workable uses AI as a set of integrated tools within the workflow for sourcing, screening, rediscovery, and content creation, all supported by strong privacy protections.

5. Workable’s approach is compliant, context-driven, and people-first first

• Workable excludes protected characteristics such as gender, age, nationality, and ethnicity from all AI-driven processes.
  
• Our AI features build on more than a decade of recruiting experience.
  
• Every tool is designed to make hiring faster, fairer, and more human, not to replace talent teams.
  

Watch the full discussion