Artificial Intelligence Is Coming for Hiring, and It Might Not Be That Bad

Artificial intelligence promises to make hiring an unbiased utopia. Employee referrals, a process that tends to leave underrepresented groups out, still make up a bulk of companies' hires. Recruiters and hiring managers also bring their own biases to the process, studies have found, often choosing people with the "right-sounding" names and educational background. Across the pipeline, companies lack racial and gender diversity, with the ranks of underrepresented people thinning at the highest levels of the corporate ladder. Fewer than 5 percent of chief executive officers at Fortune 500 companies are women, and that number will shrink further in October when Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi steps down.