Job Market Paper

Voice AI in Firms: A Natural Field Experiment on Automated Job Interviews
with Luca Henkel

📄 Download PDF (latest version: September 03, 2025)
🌐 SSRN version

Abstract
We study the impact of replacing human recruiters with AI voice agents to conduct job interviews. Partnering with a recruitment firm, we conducted a natural field experiment in which 70,000 applicants were randomly assigned to be interviewed by human recruiters, AI voice agents, or given a choice between the two. In all three conditions, human recruiters evaluated interviews and made hiring decisions based on applicants' performance in the interview and a standardized test. Contrary to the forecasts of professional recruiters, we find that AI-led interviews increase job offers by 12%, job starts by 18%, and 30-day retention by 17% among all applicants. To explain these results, we explore three channels. First, analyzing interview transcripts reveals that AI-led interviews elicit more hiring-relevant information from applicants compared to human-led interviews. Second, recruiters score the interview performance of AI-interviewed applicants higher, but place greater weight on standardized tests in their hiring decisions. Third, applicants accept job offers with a similar likelihood and rate interview, as well as recruiter quality, similarly in a customer experience survey. Moreover, when offered the choice, 78% of applicants choose the AI recruiter, and we find evidence that applicants with lower test scores are more likely to choose AI. Overall, we provide evidence that AI can match human recruiters in conducting job interviews while preserving applicants' satisfaction and firm operations.

Media coverage
PSG Global Solutions (Press Release); Teleperformance (Press Release); Booth Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence (in-depth interview); Financial Times (mention); Business Insider (quotes); The Information (short interview); Fortune (mention); Bloomberg (in-depth interview)

Talks (including scheduled)
Google (Google Economics Seminar); Microsoft Research (AI & Business Value Internal Meeting); Applied Micro Seminar (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Department of Economics) Conference on Field Experiments in Strategy 2025 (Harvard Business School & INSEAD; SF); Advances with Field Experiments Conference 2025 (University of Chicago, Department of Economics); AI Behavioral Science Workshop 2025 (Stanford University, CASBS); Behavioral Science Seminar (University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, 2025); Experimental Economics Workshop (University of Chicago, Department of Economics, 2025) TOM Workshop Meeting (Harvard Business School, 2024); Conference on Field Experiments in Strategy 2024 (Harvard Business School & INSEAD; Paris); Conference on AI in Business (Harvard Business School, Harvard D3 and Nova Business School, 2024).