Tengai - Robot in recruitment processes

This information was sourced from the European Commission, Joint Research Centre (2026): PSTW: Public Sector Tech Watch latest dataset of selected cases. [Dataset] doi: 10.2905/JRC.J1MWC9R PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/e8e7bddd-8510-4936-9fa6-7e1b399cbd92. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0).

Municipality of Upplands-Bro experimented the robot Tengai in their recruitment processes since June 2019. Tengai is one of the first interviewer robots developed with the aim to make the recruitment process less biased than traditional interview practices would do. The robot is adopted by the recruitment and staffing agency of the municipality, which has already made their recruitment processes less biased. The Tengai robot is the result of a collaboration between the municipality staff and the AI consultancy Furhat Robotics.

After the Tengai robot was released, within a week, it was decided to adopt its services permanently. Tengai firstly identify candidates with the highest general performance score, in order to make a shortlist for future selections. The robot then conducts the interviews to assess the candidates by analysing their behaviours, problem-solving capacities and other skills. If needed, the robot is able to ask follow-up questions. The interviews are then analysed, combined with the competency scores. The recruiters of the municipality will conduct the final interview with candidates to assess their motivation. The first results following the adoption of the Tengai robot have been regarded as successful and brought significant media attention to the municipality due to the innovative approach to recruitment.

Budget: Not disclosed