The Talent Acquisition and Recruiting AI (TARAI) Index is a public, interactive database that maps the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into over 100 HR and recruiting technologies. It provides a standardized, transparent view of the HR tech landscape—helping recruiters, researchers, and policymakers understand how AI operates across the hiring process.
The TARAI Index draws directly from company product materials and insights gathered through over 100 interviews with recruiters and HR tech professionals. It translates complex product language into clear, comparable data points about functionality, claims, assumptions, and AI clarity. The result is an accessible resource that allows users to explore, analyze, and question the growing influence of AI in hiring.
What makes the TARAI Index unique is its ability to deliver AI transparency into information that recruiters, HR leaders, and businesses can understand and act on. Rather than focusing only on the technical workings of AI, the TARAI Index reveals how AI really works in the context of hiring —empowering users to ask sharper, more informed questions about the technologies on the market.
The TARAI Index offers clear, evidence-based insights into how AI is actually deployed across the HR and recruiting industry, moving beyond compliance checklists to create a practical foundation for more functional, accountable, and transparent hiring technologies.
The TARAI Index is a public database of over 100 HR technology products used in recruiting and talent acquisition. It allows users to:
Explore what an AI automates. For example, does a tool simply automate scheduling, or does it rank candidates?
Assess AI clarity. For example, does a company clearly describe how their tool deploys AI, or is the description superficial or incomprehensible?
Compare tools across the hiring funnel. From sourcing and screening to interviewing and background checks.
Identify product claims and assumptions. What promises do vendors make, and what underlying ideas about efficiency, bias, or candidate "fit" are embedded?
All information is drawn directly from product marketing materials, contextualized with insights from 100+ interviews with recruiters, HR practitioners, and HR tech developers.
By standardizing how information about HR tech is presented, the TARAI Index makes the AI inside recruiting tools legible, comparable, and accountable.
The TARAI Index includes two environments that offer complementary perspectives: one grounded in daily recruiting practice, the other in systemic analysis for research.
For recruiters and businesses: Supports informed choices about technology adoption; highlights gaps in clarity and helps HR and recruiting technology buyers and users ask sharper questions of technology developers and marketing teams.
For researchers and policymakers: Creates a reference point for understanding how AI is deployed in real-world HR and recruiting contexts.
Designed for practitioners, this view functions as a searchable, filterable list of products organized by hiring stage. Recruiters can:
Quickly compare tools across the stages of sourcing, screening, or interviewing.
Review standardized descriptions of functionality, claims, and AI clarity.
Spot where marketing promises may not align with real-world practices and practical needs.
A dashboard for deeper analysis. Offering custom insights through tailored product detail views, researchers, auditors, and policymakers can:
Examine patterns in AI functionality and clarity.
Review assumptions and claims across the HR tech ecosystem.
Explore integrations of generative AI and other emerging technologies.
AI is deeply embedded in the technologies powering hiring and recruitment. Applicant tracking systems, sourcing platforms, and interview tools increasingly rely on AI to filter, rank, or even communicate with candidates. Yet, for many recruiters, these tools are black boxes. They promise efficiency but rarely explain how decisions are made—or what assumptions about hiring are built into the technology. This lack of clarity matters.
Despite years of research into how humans interact with technology on the job, most studies have focused on general trends rather than the specific transparency needs of HR practitioners. Existing tools like applicant tracking systems, automated interview platforms, and candidate screening technology play a direct role in deciding who advances through the recruiting funnel. With governments and regulators now labeling hiring technologies as “high risk,” there’s growing scrutiny, but many regulations miss how these decisions are actually made through a mix of human and machine input. This makes clear, profession-specific transparency especially urgent for recruiting teams.
The Talent Acquisition and Recruiting AI (TARAI) Index, created by the Sloane Lab at the University of Virginia, responds to this gap. It provides an open, accessible resource that helps recruiters, HR professionals, and researchers understand how AI is integrated into recruiting technologies—and how transparently companies communicate about it.