Conversational AI vs Interview AI: What’s the Difference?

If you’re a recruiter, you’re dealing with everything from generative AI and chatbots to voice assistants and virtual assistants. And one area that often gets mixed up is the difference between conversational AI and interview AI.

These two types of AI might sound similar, but they’re built for very different purposes—with different features, strengths, and AI models behind them.

In this article, I’ll break down what sets them apart and how each can be used effectively in recruitment.

What is interview AI?

Despite the name, interview AI doesn’t always mean a bot is running candidate interviews on your behalf.

Instead, it refers to any AI tool designed to support the interview process—before, during, or after the actual conversation. And that can take a few different forms:

• Real-time analysis tools that evaluate candidate responses during live interviews, offering feedback, sentiment analysis, or suggested follow-up questions to the recruiter.
• AI assistants that take care of admin work. These use gen AI to generate interview questions, while at the same time capturing notes, summarizing candidate responses, and updating your ATS automatically.
• AI-led interview apps that offer interfaces for one-way or two-way interviews. Here, candidates interact with a bot that asks questions, records answers, and scores responses based on predefined criteria.
• Candidate-facing AI tools that coach applicants ahead of interviews—offering practice questions, feedback on delivery, or tips to help them perform better in real conversations.

So, while the label “interview AI” gets thrown around a lot, the tools under that umbrella can be quite different.

That’s why it’s important to get specific about what you're trying to solve before investing in anything. Otherwise, you risk piling on a bunch of tools that don’t talk to each other—leading to fragmented data, inconsistent workflows, and more manual effort than you started with.

Common use cases for interview AI in recruitment

Interview AI can be used at different stages of the interview process, depending on whether the goal is automation, augmentation, or candidate support:

• Live interview enhancement: Recruiters can run interviews while AI tools listen in and provide real-time cues, follow-up prompts, or post-interview summaries.
• Interview automation: AI-led tools conduct structured interviews without human involvement.
• Candidate coaching: Tools that prepare candidates by offering practice questions, AI-generated feedback, or tips for virtual interviews.
• Admin reduction: AI note-takers and post-interview assistants that capture insights from conversations and update internal systems automatically.

At its core, interview AI is about enhancing the human interview process—either by saving time, improving data capture, or increasing consistency in how candidates are assessed.

What is conversational AI?

Conversational AI is exactly what it sounds like—AI technology designed to hold human-like conversations.

In recruitment, this type of AI-powered software is used to automate the repetitive, candidate-facing tasks that need to get done but don’t necessarily require a recruiter’s real-time presence.

Think of things like pre-screening, answering repetitive questions about a vacancy, scheduling interviews, or guiding a candidate through process steps.

For high-volume or entry-level roles, conversational AI can easily handle early-stage conversations—asking knock-out questions, capturing basic info, and determining who should move forward. That frees up recruiters to focus on harder-to-assess roles or more complex interviews.

Like interview AI solutions, conversational AI works by processing context and generating content. But in this case, the content creation happens in real time, in response to what the candidate says, and the end goal is human-like interactions.

The conversational AI agents ask and answer questions, adapt to the conversation, and make decisions based on context to keep things flowing naturally.

We’ll do a side-by-side comparison between these two types of AI immediately, but first, a few extra notes on conversational AI.

Conversational AI vs AI chatbots

This type of artificial intelligence is often confused with AI chatbots, and while they do share some similarities, they’re not exactly the same.

While both use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, traditional chatbots are limited to scripted workflows and predefined responses. They don’t really understand human language and tend to break when a conversation goes even slightly off-script.

You’ve probably experienced that with something like Siri or Alexa: you ask a question, and get “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.” This is very different from ChatGPT’s human-like “behavior”, so conversational AI systems using large language models (LLMs) are much more advanced.

They use deep learning to understand nuance, context, and intent, and the conversation feels natural - even if the AI has to deal with completely new content or information from candidates. In fact, candidates often say they didn’t even realize they were talking to AI during a pre-screening call.

All right, now let’s look at some practical use cases of these generative AI tools.

Common use cases for conversational AI in recruitment

Conversational AI can plug into multiple parts of the hiring process, especially early on:

• Candidate pre-screening: Handles initial screenings via messaging platforms or voice AI, asking knock-out questions and assessing basic fit.
• Answering FAQs: Responds to candidate questions about the role, company, or process—via chat widgets, SMS, or social media channels.
• Scheduling interviews: Syncs with recruiter calendars and books interviews by simply asking candidates when they’re available.
• Virtual onboarding: Guides new hires through onboarding tasks in a conversational format, providing a more engaging experience.
• ATS updates: Automatically logs information gathered during conversations back into your recruitment system.

At its core, conversational AI is designed to take over the front-end of the recruiting process—making sure every candidate gets a consistent, responsive experience, while giving recruiters their time back.

Side-by-side comparison: Interview AI vs conversational AI

While both interview AI and conversational AI are designed to boost recruiter efficiency, they’re built for different parts of the hiring process—and they solve very different problems. That’s why it’s important to get clear on your goals and use cases before bringing any new tech into your workflow.

Interview AI is all about improving the quality of the hiring decision. It’s used to standardize candidate evaluations, reduce unconscious bias, and support recruiters with deeper insights during interviews. Think of it as a quality-first tool—helping teams with decision-making and building stronger, more consistent talent pipelines.

Conversational AI, on the other hand, focuses on the front of the funnel. It’s typically used in the application phase, especially for high-volume or entry-level roles where the goal is to quickly identify which candidates meet the minimum criteria—with little to no human involvement. It's more quantity-driven, designed to filter at scale and keep the hiring process moving.

That’s why conversational AI is a go-to in volume hiring: it automates the repetitive, early-stage tasks, engages with every candidate consistently, and improves candidate experience through quick, human-like responses.

Interview AI supports how decisions get made. Conversational AI supports who gets into the funnel in the first place.

Choosing the right AI for your hiring process

Choosing between conversational AI and interview AI technology depends heavily on your hiring process, your goals and the kind of business you’re recruiting for.  

So for example, an interview AI tool would be more useful for agencies or organizations who prioritize quality over quantity. These are businesses that want to learn from their hiring datasets to optimize their processes and improve the candidate experience.

Conversational AI tools, on the other hand, are the perfect choice for large organizations that engage in volume hiring, where application numbers can be huge and unmanagable for recruiters.

By delegating the whole pre-screening stage to conversational AI, and allowing chatbots to take over low-impact interactions, recruiters can focus their time on the shortlisted candidates.

But the real secret sauce? Using a combined approach. Using an AI recruiting tool that has both interview and conversational AI technology embedded will create a seamless workflow and give you the best of both worlds.

Over to you

While conversational AI and interview AI have different goals and use cases, both AI types play a crucial role in modern hiring. This is why the most forward-thinking recruitment teams aren't choosing between these technologies—they're leveraging both.

AI platforms like Carv blend both interview and conversational AI features into the technology to provide hiring teams with a really comprehensive hiring solution.

This combined approach represents the future of AI recruitment technology, creating a seamless end-to-end hiring workflow that will make any hiring process vastly more efficient, while providing a better candidate experience too.

To see our interview AI and conversational AI modules in action, book a demo below.