When you show up to a job interview, you're typically prepared to dive deep into your background as a job candidate and the specifics of the role and company you're interested in joining.
However, due to the rise in artificial intelligence in the workplace, some job candidates are experiencing a unique situation. They show up to the interview only to find the person behind the phone or Zoom call interview is actually not a person at all—it's a robot designed by the company to interview and help make hiring decisions.
TikToker Leo Humphries recorded some of his experience being interviewed by a glitchy AI in a video last week.
"At first, I wasn't sure how to feel," Leo Humphries told from the experience. "I think in the moment I just felt a sense of disappointment."
Why It Matters
Artificial intelligence is already disrupting the workforce, with many AI models deemed to exhibit intelligent behavior indistinguishable from a human.
While some job capabilities across industries are already being outsourced by AI, hiring is a new frontier for automation, with some companies opting to use robots to do their interviews for them. However, not all of the AI is without flaws, causing some job candidates to record eerie if not totally ruined interviews when their AI interviewer glitches or fails altogether.
What To Know
Humphries, a 25-year-old man living in Houston, Texas, said he was in the middle of an interview for his dream job when it became clear that he was not actually going to speak to a hiring manager.
He shows his face, realizing the voice is robotic at the beginning of the call.
"For our first question, let's circle back. Tell me about a time when, when, when, let's," the AI interviewer is shown glitching.
Humphries said the interview was with a large national company, and he originally applied for the job through a news company's website.
"I think the Internet's breaking up or something," Humphries said in the video, still slightly under the impression that the tech error might not just be a glitchy AI.
"I don't even know what to do," he said as he realized the situation. "At this point I'm just waiting for someone to tell me they're pranking me," he wrote in the video.
Eventually, the AI interviewer thanked him for taking the time to answer their questions despite Humphries not getting a chance to respond due to the glitch.
"When I reached the interview stage, I was surprised to find out that the interviewer was actually an AI," Humphries told. "I wasn't given too much explanation beforehand, so it definitely caught me off guard. At first, I wasn't sure how to feel. I think in the moment I just felt a sense of disappointment."
Humphries is not the only person with firsthand experience of what can go wrong when AI is in charge of a job interview.
TikToker @its_ken04 shared a similar experience, posting a video that showed an AI bot glitching in a similar way by repeating the same phrase over and over again.
"I think using AI in interviews says a lot about the future of the workforce. On one hand, it's efficient and can help companies process a large number of candidates quickly," Humphries said.
"On the other hand, it raises questions about personal connection, fairness, and how well AI can truly evaluate someone's qualifications and personality. It definitely made me wonder how widespread this practice might become."
What People Are Saying
HR consultant Bryan Driscoll: "These videos are just the tip of the iceberg. Companies are rushing to shove AI into the hiring process because it seemingly cuts costs, not because it improves candidate experience. When you prioritize alleged efficiency over people, you get dehumanizing, glitchy interviews that treat applicants like data points, not humans."
Josh Jones, CEO of generative AI Quanthub: "These videos are a clear sign of the 'messy middle' we're in with AI. AI is enabling remarkable new capabilities, but it's not reliable enough to replace the human element in high-stakes settings like interviews. We've even seen candidates in our own interviews using tools that feed them suggested answers in real time, which often results in awkward or disjointed interactions. The fact that AI can now drive interviews, or at least appear to, is impressive, but the technology just isn't there yet to do this at scale without significant hiccups."
Karim Meghji, chief product officer of Code.org: "AI is quickly becoming embedded in every aspect of hiring, and like many business processes, the interview experience is undergoing an AI transformation. It's encouraging to see companies experiment; that's how progress happens, but these early efforts often come with real consequences for candidates, from awkward technical glitches to more serious risks like bias and misjudgment when decisions are outsourced too quickly to imperfect systems."
What Happens Next
Some people working in HR, like Driscoll, believe the use of AI in hiring could end up being "dangerous" and "expensive" if not managed correctly.
"AI can reinforce bias, strip away nuance, and make it harder for underrepresented or nontraditional candidates to break through. We already know from numerous studies that AI systems reflect the biases of the data they're trained on, meaning they're often just automating discrimination at scale," Driscoll said.
These flawed algorithms could hurt a business's diversity and long term success if not used properly, experts say.
"AI tools help streamline the pipeline, like resume screening and scheduling, but we're seeing an escalation in an AI arms race on both sides of the hiring equation," Jones said. "Candidates are using AI to prepare or even respond in interviews, while recruiters use it to evaluate and select. The challenge is keeping this loop human-centered. AI should support better decisions, not speed us into biased or ineffective ones."