AI interviews rolling out for some federal government hires, sources say

By Nancy Cordes Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes is CBS News' chief White House correspondent based in Washington, D.C. Cordes has won numerous awards for her reporting, including multiple Emmys, Edward R. Murrow awards, and an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award. Read Full Bio September 3, 2026 / 11:24 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google Washington — The federal government will shift into using artificial intelligence in the interview process for some job applicants in the coming days, according to U.S. officials. Not all federal agencies will immediately use AI to interview job seekers, but the technology will be tested on the so-called Tech Force, an initiative started eight months ago to recruit private-sector tech experts into two-year government posts.A platform called CodeSignal will be used on the Tech Force applicant pool, one of the officials said. The federal government, a massive employer with about 1.9 million workers, has been a step behind the private sector in using AI interviewing tools as the first layer of screening for high-volume postings. Guidance issued last week by the Office of Personnel Management, the government's HR unit, nudged agencies to use AI during the hiring process, but called for human oversight, especially in certain crucial personnel decisions. OPM introduced a tool earlier this year that uses AI to prepare job descriptions.Spokespeople for the office didn't immediately comment. The director, Scott Kupor, has pushed to speed up the often-sluggish federal hiring process. He has also pushed agency heads to tap early career professionals for at least a third of their new hires in order to offset the imbalance in the aging federal government workforce. AI is being used more heavily for tasks in the personnel office, whose administrative staff have access on their government computers to AI programs including Microsoft's Copilot, Anthropic's Claude, OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. In the pilot program for Tech Force hires, AI agents will conduct structured interviews with standardized questions. The agents will record and summarize the audio so hiring managers can view and evaluate later.CodeSignal offers several AI-powered tools to screen job applicants in the early rounds of the hiring process, including interviews with virtual AI agents and phone, audio and text-based options. Hiring managers are then sent transcribed recordings on candidates.In coming years, AI is likely to become a more common part of the federal government interview process, several officials said. In: Artificial Intelligence