Recruitment Is Stuck: Why We Started BerriBot and Berri Bytes
Agentic AI has reached recruitment in pieces rather than as a whole, which is why candidates find hiring opaque and recruiters feel they no longer control the process. Agents are being applied to isolated workflow steps instead of to outcomes. Berri Bytes is our attempt to document where the industry goes next.
Key facts
The market size of Agentic AI is estimated at several billion dollars in 2025, between $5 and $10 billion depending on the source.
By 2029, agents are expected to answer nearly 80% of customer queries and interactions online.
Recruitment's adoption has been piecemeal, and the resulting conflict is that candidates feel they are fighting an opaque system while recruiters feel they have lost control of the process.
Berri Bytes covers three pillars: how AI empowers recruiters, whether AI can make hiring more human, and how transparency and freedom from bias are ensured.
I'm Satish, co-founder of BerriBot, India's most scalable and automated GenAI recruitment platform. Berri Bytes is our attempt to tell the story of how recruitment is shifting, and to become the most trustworthy source of insight on where the industry is heading and how it affects the lives of recruiters and candidates.
Agentic AI is software made of autonomous agents that pursue an outcome across multiple steps, rather than executing a single instruction and stopping.
Why has agentic AI reached recruitment unevenly?
Because the industry has been buying agents for workflow steps rather than for outcomes.
The market size of Agentic AI is estimated at several billion dollars in 2025, between $5 and $10 billion depending on the source. By 2029, agents are expected to answer nearly 80% of customer queries and interactions online.
In recruitment, the adoption has been piecemeal and carries real concerns. Candidates worry that they are fighting an opaque system. Recruiters increasingly feel they do not control the process. That conflict comes from bringing agents in to address specific parts of a workflow rather than thinking in terms of overall outcomes. That will change. Agentic AI can amplify human potential and remove the existing limits.
Why does recruiting need to change at all?
Because the practices have not kept pace with the people on either side of them.
I have been in recruitment teams, including leading them for a billion-dollar IT services company. Having watched millions of hopeful candidates move through the process, and having seen what recruitment at scale actually costs the people running it, I believe digital agents can change how humans interact with technology, with businesses and with each other.
Traditional recruitment methods consistently fall short with the newest generation entering the workforce. Recruitment is foundational to every company's success, and most organisations still rely on outdated practices: tedious screening, impersonal candidate experiences, bias-riddled assessments and slow processes.
My sympathy is with recruiters who sift through thousands of resumes under real constraints of cost and time. The modern recruiter deserves a better toolkit.
On the other side, today's candidates are digital natives raised on personalisation, authenticity and immediate interaction. Despite misconceptions about their work ethic, which I strongly disagree with, Gen Z expects intuitive, transparent and engaging hiring experiences. The traditional process is stressful and alienating for both sides.
What are the three pillars Berri Bytes will cover?
Pillar
The question
Our position
1. Empowerment
How does AI empower recruiters?
Recruiters get levelled up rather than replaced. A system that could run recruitment single-handedly would be a system running the company
2. Humanity
Can AI make hiring more human and intimate for candidates?
Yes, with focus on human interaction, empathetic process and flexibility around candidate requirements
3. Transparency
How do we ensure transparency and freedom from bias?
AI recommendations have to be auditable, and AI can make hiring more bias-free rather than less
1. How does AI empower recruiters? Could an AI system single-handedly manage the entire recruitment process for a company? Technically feasible, and that would also be the day the AI runs the company. Recruitment is such an inherent part of a company's ethos that recruiters will always need to be empowered and levelled up rather than fully replaced. Platforms that manage repetitive tasks, conduct sophisticated assessments and live challenges, and verify authenticity should free recruiters to engage meaningfully, build relationships and make strategic hiring decisions.
2. Can AI make the experience more human? The primary worry today is the inhuman, creepy nature of talking to an AI interviewer. With focus on human interaction, an empathetic process, and flexibility to accommodate the candidate's requirements, hiring can become less anxiety-inducing and more engaging, particularly for younger candidates. That is a tenet we will keep addressing.
3. How do we ensure transparency and freedom from bias? Bias in hiring has existed for ages, and one of my consistent goals has been to establish processes that encourage transparency in evaluation and communication. With AI, the questions get sharper. How do we make AI recommendations auditable? How do we address common biases so the process is genuinely fair? We believe AI can make recruitment more bias-free rather than less.
Why does this matter now?
Because hundreds of millions of workers will pass through these processes, and candidates now judge companies on the hiring experience itself.
Across India, the United States and elsewhere, hundreds of millions of young and late-career workers will go through a wide array of recruitment processes. Candidates increasingly evaluate companies on the experience they receive from the hiring stages onward. Recruiters deserve tools that meet those expectations.
Engaging thousands of candidates asynchronously, holding hundreds of conversations, and leaving people feeling understood and respected: that combination improves efficiency and builds the employer brand at the same time. That is the mission at BerriBot.
What will Berri Bytes publish?
Five kinds of writing, and less about our products than about the problems.
Practical insights on AI, Gen Z recruitment strategies and hiring best practices.
Transparent discussion of AI ethics, fairness and human oversight.
Authentic stories and case studies.
Technological advances that strengthen human connection in recruitment.
Forward-looking ideas about where recruitment goes next.
We will also feature voices from the industry, and eventually from the community of recruiters, candidates and tool providers.
— Satish, Co-founder, BerriBot
Frequently asked questions
What is agentic AI in recruitment?
Agentic AI is software made of autonomous agents that pursue an outcome across multiple steps rather than executing a single instruction and stopping. In recruitment that means agents that screen, contact, schedule, interview and verify, passing work between each other without a recruiter coordinating each handoff.
How large is the agentic AI market?
The market size of Agentic AI is estimated at several billion dollars in 2025, between $5 and $10 billion depending on the source. By 2029, agents are expected to answer nearly 80% of customer queries and interactions online.
Why do candidates and recruiters both feel worse about AI in hiring?
Because adoption has been piecemeal. Agents have been brought in to address isolated parts of the workflow rather than overall outcomes, which leaves candidates facing an opaque system and recruiters feeling they no longer control the process.
Could AI run recruitment without any human involvement?
Technically it is feasible, and that would also be the day the AI runs the company. Recruitment is an inherent part of a company's ethos, so recruiters need to be levelled up rather than replaced, with the repetitive work moving to the system.
Can AI make hiring feel more human for candidates?
Yes, with the right focus. The worry today is that talking to an AI interviewer feels impersonal. Designing around human interaction, an empathetic process and flexibility about candidate requirements makes hiring less anxiety-inducing and more engaging, particularly for younger candidates.
How do you make AI hiring recommendations auditable?
By requiring that every recommendation can be traced back to the information behind it, and that matching and scoring can answer "why did it make this decision?". Bias has always existed in hiring, and structured, traceable evaluation makes it easier to detect than unstructured human judgement does.
Next step: See what an end-to-end agentic hiring workflow looks like in practice. Book a demo
