Just over half of employers in Ireland still believe artificial intelligence will not impact their headcount, according to a new survey by co-working and serviced office space provider Glandore.
Respondents to the company’s 2026 Pulse Survey suggested they may have to hire in new skill sets as a result of the rapidly developing technology but 51.7 per cent said they believed overall numbers would remain largely unchanged.
Of the 200 member organisations that participated, 13.4 per cent said they believed the deployment of AI would lead to job losses within their operations while 7.6 per cent expect numbers to go up.
The positive assessment was reflected too in responses about business outlook for the next 12 months, with 82.6 per cent expressing confidence they will grow their operations in the coming year.
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Almost three-quarters of respondents, 73.8 per cent, said they operate a blended working model with almost as many, 72.7 per cent, saying flexibility ranked more highly than pay for their staff.
The growing impact of AI on hiring, meanwhile, is reflected in the data from the latest Candidate AI Interview Report from hiring platform Greenhouse.
Almost 3,000 people participated in the research which was conducted with active job seekers across the US, UK, Germany, Australia and Ireland.
More than a third of the Irish respondents had been interviewed at least once by AI and of those 21 per cent said they realised it would be used only after the process had been deployed.
Sixty per cent said they believed there should be a legal requirement for more transparency with regard to the use of tech in the process and while a majority of applicants had not objected to the use of AI in hiring generally, they wanted there to be guardrails involved.
More than a quarter, however, 27 per cent, said they had walked away from a process when faced with the prospect of being interviewed by AI and a further 23 per cent said they would if faced with the situation.
Among those who had already experienced its use for interviewing, 39 per cent said they never heard anything more from the prospective employer after interviewing.
“Candidates are telling us exactly what they want, and it isn’t complicated: tell them when AI is in the room and what it’s measuring. Right now, most employers are failing that test,” said Sharawn Tipton, chief people officer at Greenhouse.
“And let’s not pretend. AI isn’t fixing bias, it’s scaling it. Candidates can feel that, and they walk away.” This, she said, did not just damage the hiring process but also had an impact on the employer’s reputation.
“Until we get honest about what these tools are actually measuring and own it when they get it wrong, we’re just repackaging the same problem,” she said.
