AI speeds up hiring, forcing recruiters to defend their fees

Artificial intelligence is taking over more of the work behind a hire, and recruitment firms may have to justify what they charge as a result, according to CNBC Technology. Agencies commonly bill employers a share of the successful candidate's first-year pay.

David Berwick, who owns the Stockport, England agency Adria Solutions, told CNBC that clients could start asking what their money buys once software handles more of each placement. He said a firm that only gathers CVs and passes them on will struggle to defend that service, since employers can automate much of it themselves.

Evidence of the shift is building. A 2026 survey of close to 300 recruitment professionals across the U.K. and Ireland, run by U.S. software provider Bullhorn, found that 37% reported AI had cut candidate screening time by between 26% and 50%. LinkedIn's 2025 UK Future of Recruiting report found that talent acquisition staff testing or adopting generative AI recovered an average of 18% of their working week.

Large firms are already deploying the tools. Adecco, the staffing company headquartered in Switzerland, reported in February that it runs six AI recruitment agents in Britain and France, and that the U.K. versions recover roughly 15% of the time spent on hiring processes.

Britain was where the Adecco Group first piloted those agents, said Niki Turner-Harding, who oversees the U.K. and Ireland for the company. She said the agents assist the process but do not decide who gets hired, that a human recruiter keeps that role, and that candidates may ask for a person at any point. Group-wide, the company said its AI has handled over 2.5 million candidate interactions, about half of them outside standard hours.

Turner-Harding told CNBC that recruiters enter the field to work with people and solve problems rather than to do administration, so she expects them to spend less time on process and more on recruiting.

Matt Collingwood, managing director of Birmingham firm VIQU Group, said he treats automation as a way to free recruiters for relationship building instead of a route to a cheaper version of the same service. He said VIQU's turnover rose 47% over 18 months, partly through that approach, and he expects fees to hold or rise if the value delivered keeps growing.

Not everyone is so optimistic. Collingwood estimated that just one in three agencies may still be trading in five years. James Wright, founder of the London executive hiring firm Velocity Leadership, said AI now handles work that once needed five people, and he argued that the big global search firms could be pushed to cut staff heavily.