Why recruiting agencies struggle with adoption of AI
Artificial intelligence promises to transform recruiting. From candidate sourcing to matching and outreach, AI tools are marketed as the key to faster placements and better decisions. Yet, most agencies that try to “go AI” see little to no improvement. Why? Because the foundation is broken.
It’s not the tech, it’s bad data and change management.
The hidden enemy, bad data
Recruiters live in their Applicant Tracking System (ATS), but those databases are often a mess, outdated profiles, missing skills, inconsistent job titles, and wrong contact details. Even the best AI can’t fix that.
When the data is off, every output is off:
Matching brings irrelevant candidates.
Outreach targets the wrong people.
Analytics tell the wrong story.
Garbage in, garbage out. If the ATS doesn’t reflect reality, AI only amplifies the noise.
The human barrier aka change management
Even with clean data, adoption fails when recruiters don’t change how they work.
New tools get rolled out, but people default to LinkedIn, Excel, and email. If AI feels like extra work, it never sticks.
Real adoption starts quietly. AI should support recruiters, not disrupt them. It should take over the repetitive admin (classification, updates, enrichment) so humans can focus on what they’re best at: judgment, context, and relationships.
The only solution is to build on trustworthy data
To make AI useful, agencies must rebuild trust in their ATS. That means keeping profiles current, complete, and consistent. Automatically.
Once the data is right:
AI suggestions become relevant.
Searches deliver usable shortlists.
Recruiters actually rely on the ATS.
That’s what Daidalo does. We turn outdated ATS databases into reliable, structured, and current sources of truth, with minimal behaviour change and no manual work.
TL;DR
AI won’t transform recruiting until the data foundation is fixed. Clean, complete, and current data make everything above it - search, matching, analytics - finally work. Agencies that start there will lead the next decade of recruiting.
