INSIGHT: Covid-19 May Push More Companies to Use AI as Hiring Tool

Whether employers are currently operating as normal, teleworking, or planning for the future, the Covid-19 experience may lead them to turn to the proliferation of workplace artificial intelligence (AI) tools to help streamline recruiting and hiring so they can continue maintaining social distancing best practices. Employers should be aware, however, that using such AI tools brings with it various regulatory challenges regardless of its utility in these trying times. AI has been exerting an ever-growing influence on companies' employment decisionmaking for some time. AI tools that have long been used to market services and products to customers (e.g., algorithms for personalized pop-up ads) are making increasing inroads into the employment arena, including those that mine data from an applicant's social media and internet presence to determine personal attributes and those that evaluate an applicant's responses during a video interview in making employment decisions. Employers considering using AI recruitment and selection tools during the Covid-19 crisis, which some experts expect to last for months after the curve has "flattened," should be mindful of the potential for misuse and of discriminatory impact raised by these technologies.