Are AI tools the solution for enhancing diversity and inclusion in hiring?

April 2, 2026

Sara Maginn Pacella

The potential of AI feels limitless. For HR professionals, AI represents an efficient and effective way to improve diversity and inclusion in the hiring process, leading skeptics to question whether AI is truly at the heart of bias-free hiring. The answer may be more nuanced.

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AI in the modern hiring process

Organizations and applicants are both using AI as part of modern hiring processes. Job listings are created with AI, applicants use AI to build their resumés and cover letters using AI and then other AI systems sort through applications, flagging shortlisted recommendations to HR teams for interviews, all with the goal of AI diversity hiring.

The Greenhouse 2025 Workforce & Hiring Report shows just how deeply AI has impacted recruitment and hiring practices. Notably, 45 per cent of job applicants use AI to help them prepare for job interviews and 22 per cent use bots to apply for job roles automatically. Despite a reliance on AI for job applications, 26 per cent of candidates believe that AI has made it harder for them to make their experience stand out. Twenty-seven percent of job candidates say they have never seen employer policies on the use of AI in hiring.

” 45 per cent of job applicants use AI to help them prepare for job interviews and 22 per cent use bots to apply for job roles automatically ”

Machines busting bias?

The potential of AI to reduce bias in hiring is exciting, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has been applied in practice.

Hilke Schellmann, assistant professor of journalism at New York University and author of The Algorithm: How AI Can Hijack Your Career and Steal Your Future, told the BBC, “We haven’t seen a whole lot of evidence that there’s no bias here … or that the tool picks out the most qualified candidates.”

She also talks about the exponential bias damage an algorithm can make toward diversity and inclusion in hiring: “One biased human hiring manager can harm a lot of people in a year, and that’s not great. But an algorithm that is maybe used in all incoming applications at a large company … that could harm hundreds of thousands of applicants.”

Working hand in hand with AI tools

While using AI for inclusive talent acquisition may be an end-goal, the process of diversity inclusion must happen before AI recruitment tools are purchased and implemented. As senior management and HR begin the process of strategic implementation and promotion of AI tools for inclusion and diversity, some critical steps need to happen within the organization and the department:

Deep and thorough evaluation of AI hiring tools and training for staff;
Leaders providing regular monitoring, audits and adjustment in practice;
Acceptance of a deep responsibility to ensure that AI tools are used ethically and transparently;
Ensuring that clear AI policies, guidelines and governance are established and well communicated to all stakeholders; and
Encouraging regular staff input on related AI initiatives.

AI-driven bias mitigation in recruitment

Hiring biases were around long before AI. Biases, including ageism, racism, sexism and bias against those with disabilities, can be passed along to AI, primarily through those who are training the LLMs.

Sarah Stockdale, CEO of Growclass, explained to HR Reporter that AI, at present, is just a mirror of our pre-existing biases. “So, until you grapple with the fundamental biases that are baked into HR, it’s hard to say, ‘Well, we’re going to fix this one tool, and it will make everything good again.’ Because there’s bias at every stage, whether it’s human or machine-based.”

Other skeptics note that while many AI screening providers are aware of potential bugs in their software and are working to correct them, competition is steep in this emerging market, so no one is going to advertise shortfalls or room for improvement in their product suites.

Practice meets emerging regulations

The Canadian government has created a guide for using AI in the hiring process.

Highlights include accountability for all decisions made at each stage of the hiring process that fall upon hiring managers, including ensuring that AI is trained without bias and monitoring the quality of AI-crafted candidate communication and all final hiring decisions. AI does not remove the onus from HR teams; it’s simply a tool that must be implemented, monitored and adjusted as needed.

Ontario leads other provinces in regulating transparency around the use of AI in the hiring process. As of January 1, 2026, employers with more than 25 employees in Ontario must disclose a “clear statement that [their] hiring process uses AI at any stage to screen, assess, or select candidates” in any publicly advertised job postings and applications related to this process.

Ethical AI hiring in practice

Research published by Harvard Business Review (HBR) led the researchers to explore three meaningful questions that HR leadership should be asking about fairness in hiring, with or without AI.

What versions of fairness exist in our organization?
Who has the authority to give AI the power to decide what’s “fair” and on what basis?
Which version of fairness does AI strengthen, and what gets lost over time?

Insights from HBR show that diversity goes beyond AI recruitment tools and whether AI will eliminate bias in hiring, moving the conversation to leadership decisions to “bring the right people into the room, ask the right questions, and keep testing assumptions about the realities of work.”

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