Why not a chatbot? Tengai creates a human connection
Imagine a recruiter that treats all candidates the same, always ask the same questions and doesn’t care about appearance, gender or age. Well, you don’t have to imagine because she already exists! Introducing Tengai Unbiased, the social AI-robot who is programmed to conduct objective job interviews. Tengai is unique and a very effective recruitment tool because she can establish a “human” connection with candidates during her job interview.
In comparison to a chatbot, Tengai’s social behavior make co-presence and behavioral realism possible, which are crucial to enhancing the candidate experience. The immersive experience Tengai creates during an interview is one of the things that make the interview robot unique. Some have questioned if Tengai would be as effective as a chatbot but the fact is, being a conversational AI robot is crucial to the immersive candidate experience.
How Tengai engages candidates
Tengai engages the candidate during her blind interviews which leads to the enhanced user experience. The digital robot shows nonverbal “signs” of being aware of the job seeker like nodding appropriately, which creates a feeling of intimacy. The combination of her social behavior makes her relatable to candidates. The job seeker, therefore, gives more interactive responses when Tengai is perceived as “human-like”, which leads to enhanced user experience.
Conversational robots are perceived more positively and believable, according to a metastudy that compared co-present robots, Conversational AI and chatbots. The thousands of interviews with Tengai came to the same conclusion. The majority of participants even said that they were able to express themselves better and more honest during the robot interview.
An interview robot with a human interface
Tengai creates the feeling of being there with a real person, which is a crucial component of interaction. Furhat Robotics are specialists in social robots. Co-founder and CEO Samer Al Moubayed describes how the user experience is more engaging when it is immersive:
“When trying to describe a social robot’s user-experience, I usually use the analogy of Virtual Reality. What makes VR different from other “screens”, is that it is immersive. You can see the same thing when you look at your phone. But when you experienc it with a full field of view, it becomes exponentially more engaging.”
This makes the user “suspend their disbelief” and treat it as reality. A similar argument can be used for robots compared to seeing the same thing on a computer screen, talking to it on the phone, or chatting with it using text.
How Tengai engages candidates
Co-presence
Co-presence is the effect of sharing the same experience with someone. Throughout human evolution, humans have always been co-present with each other. Being co-present with the candidate is key to how Tengai’s positively affect candidate experience. Because co-presence makes us believe that we share or have a very similar experience. So Tengai’s ability to actively show the job seeker that she is aware of the suroundings is what creates co-presence. Tengai can look at the candidate in the eyes and blink naturally. These are signals humans give to confirm each other, which creates that sense of a shared experience.
Behavioral Realism
Behavioral realism definition is the complete absence, or presence, of nonverbal behavior. In Tengai’s case, the focus is on how consistent the nonverbal behavior is with actual humans (e.g., eye contact). Studies show that behavioral realism is a powerful predictor of perceived social presence. The more realistic an object’s representation is, the more realistic views the user gets. Because Tengai can smile, nod, and behaves in the way an actual person would behave, she creates a higher level of social presence. Tengai’s natural behavior creates a higher level of intimacy and connectedness since candidates experience her as “human-like”.

*This blog was updated on May 19, 2022.