Five years ago, the idea of replacing recruiters with AI sounded like a bold vision.

Today, we know better.

Most tools marketed to do that end up buried in the same noise: buzzword matches, padded resumes, and a short list of people who looked right on paper but didn’t land the role.

We asked our VP of Global Tech Sales, Kurt Vosburgh, to cut through it.

“The technology is probably going to say, ‘Hey, this person is an amazing fit,’” says Kurt. “Then you talk to them, and realize they’ve done one-tenth of what’s on their resume.”

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That disconnect is exactly where the opportunity lives.

AI in talent management works, but only when it’s deployed for the right reasons and run by people who understand the process.

The smartest teams are learning to let the tools handle what slows them down while keeping humans focused on what matters most.

Kurt lays out what that balance actually looks like, where the line is today between efficiency and intuition, and what leaders need to do now to stay ahead of what’s coming.

The pitch was to replace recruiters but that never really worked

The original promise of AI in recruiting was simple. Type in a few keywords, run an algorithm, and out comes a shortlist of perfect candidates. “Historically, the goal within recruitment is to fundamentally replace the recruiter,” Kurt Vosburgh says. “They want to be able to go in, put in a search, have that search run an algorithm, buzzword match, and ultimately come out with the result that they want.”

But that promise never delivered. The tech might exist, but the adoption never really landed. The process is way more nuanced than people gave it credit for. “You can't just type in a couple buzzwords and have it come back and be accurate. It needs to be really in-depth,” he explains. AI doesn’t know what ten years of experience feels like. It doesn’t know the difference between someone who actually led a team and someone who just listed "team lead" on their resume five times.

And that’s before you get into the noise. “You're basically filtering through a bunch of generic information,” Kurt says. “You end up missing a lot of people who are probably a better fit than your algorithm decides. Or you get people to pop up who aren't the right fit because they threw a buzzword in there too many times.”

At some point, the industry started to realize the obvious. Resumes are padded. Inputs are inconsistent. And the person who looks great on paper might not be remotely close to who you want walking into the office.

“The more that they try to remove the human, the more they realize there's still a human element that is needed,” Kurt says. “And that doesn't even touch what I think is the most important. You can't really get a feel for the person until you actually speak with them.”

AI works best when it finds people not when it talks to them

AI is a phenomenal sourcing tool. When you’re staring down fifteen job boards and millions of resumes, it can do in minutes what would take a human days. “Right now, our version of automation is a human, offshore ninja,” Kurt says, “but to go through 15 different databases, 15 different job boards is just so time-consuming.” With the right setup, AI can take what would be a year of manual review and get it done in an hour.

It shines in the volume game. “Instead of recruiting from all of LinkedIn, you're recruiting from that top list that's sent to you,” he explains. You go from a billion people down to a thousand. “So as a sourcing mechanism, I think it's a phenomenal tool.”

But when it comes to engagement? “Not great,” he says flatly. “How many times have you received an automated email or a text where you have the plus sign in front of it from a Google network?” Nobody answers those. It goes straight to voicemail, or worse, straight to trash.

The real value starts when a person gets involved. “My sourcing teams could get the AI tool to take their requests... then they source from that talent pool,” Kurt explains. “And then ultimately, the recruiters will call them and engage them and qualify them and submit them.”

AI can help you find the right people. It can help you find them faster. But it still takes a person to get them to show up.

Culture fit and leadership presence still belong to people

“You can usually meet somebody on a video right away and know,” Kurt says. “Do they have a look? Do they have a voice? Do they have a feel? Do they have a confidence?” None of that is getting picked up by a keyword scan.

Even video responses don’t tell the full story. Someone can record a script and check all the boxes, but that doesn’t mean they’re ready to lead a team or step into a high-pressure environment. “It's not something as simple as being articulate. It's understanding their presence,” he explains. “Do they stare you in the eye? Do they draw the attention from the room? Are they that manager or leader you need?”

AI can tell you who checks the boxes. It can’t tell you who walks in and immediately commands respect.

And when it comes to understanding seniority or professionalism, the gaps are still huge. “They list all this great technology, but AI struggles to understand the difference between a level of seniority and professionalism that a senior person would have versus a more junior level person,” Kurt says. The tools aren’t built to evaluate confidence, judgment, or lived experience.

There are attempts to get at this. Personality tests, DISC profiles, even video assessments. But they haven’t gained traction. “No one's going to get a random email from me from a robot or an automated AI agent, open it up, and say, ‘I'm going to do a DISC test, then go talk to a camera,’” Kurt says. “It just seems like a waste of time.”

When you remove the human element, you miss the signal. Culture fit doesn’t live in data. It shows up in the interaction.

Candidates would love automation if they could trust it

One of the biggest missed opportunities with AI in hiring isn’t the tech. It’s trust. “If I get an email from Google tomorrow that says, ‘Hey Kurt, we want you to come run this business for us,’ but I have to click on a link, upload a video, and add my info?” he says. “I'm not doing it.”

And he’s not alone. “No one's going to do it unless they speak to somebody first and they know it's a legitimate, real thing.” Spam ruined the rollout. “There’s just so much of it that it seems like spam now versus a value-add tool.”

But the potential is massive if someone gets the delivery right. Imagine a candidate who gets a link from a trusted source, completes a short video, answers a few key questions, and then sees their profile take shape in real time. “That process actually would be great,” Kurt says. “If it was something that was normal, people would do it.”

And candidates would benefit. “You know what stage you're at. You can check if the job’s still open. You know if your profile's been reviewed,” he explains. “You’re no longer relying on somebody else to understand where you are in the process.”

It’s not just about visibility. It’s about momentum. “If I'm a candidate, and I go through that process, it's going to save my status. It’s going to learn about who I am. It’s probably going to recommend future jobs,” Kurt says. “The more I use it, the more accurate those jobs are going to be.”

Candidates don’t hate automation. They just want to know it’s real before they give it their time.

Use the tools but stay human where it matters

There’s no avoiding it. AI is here, and it’s only going to become a bigger part of the process. “You have to learn the technology,” Kurt says. “You need to know what exactly it can do and what exactly it can replace.”

That doesn’t mean you get replaced. It means you get sharper about where to lean in. “If you understand the capabilities of the technology and you know how to use them, then you know where it’s effective and where it’s not,” he explains. “And you focus on the human element where the technology still struggles.”

Automate the grind. Resume review, scheduling, onboarding. Let the system take those pieces off your plate. But when it comes to nuance, judgment, candidate experience, and the real selling of the role, that’s still yours to own.

And if you want to future-proof yourself, you can’t just react. You’ve got to be proactive about what’s coming. “You can’t just sit and wait. Everyone else is going to start outperforming you if you don’t know how to learn the tools,” Kurt says.

It also means taking your data seriously, starting now. “If someone gets fired, save the data. If someone’s a good hire, save the data. Know what a good hire looks like and why,” he says. “You want to be the ones who use these tools the best, not just as a recruiter, but as a hiring manager.”

Because that’s the real shift. You’re not just evaluating people anymore. You’re selling your brand. You’re translating your culture. And the best people in the room will be the ones who know how to do that with just the right balance of software and instinct.