How can businesses close the AI adoption gap? Start with your recruitment teams, new LinkedIn research shows

• Only 4 in 10 of business leaders are satisfied with their progress on AI, with talent leaders saying their executives are concerned the workforce doesn’t have the skills to execute on business strategy 

• Business leaders are turning to recruiters to solve the skills gap challenge, with 86% of recruiters saying their CEO is relying on them to build the workforce of the future 

• Recruiters using LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant are leading the way in agentic hiring, with companies like AMD, Aurecon, Chewy, Expedia Group, Fabletics, Insite, Jacobs, MediaNews Group, Microsoft, Siemens and Wipro using it today 

New research from LinkedIn reveals that unlocking AI’s full potential is not just a tech challenge, but also a talent challenge - with businesses turning to recruitment teams to play a leading role in using AI to build the workforce of the future.

Businesses are not satisfied with their company’s AI progress and say there is a skills gap challenge

• Only 4 in 10 business leaders are satisfied with their progress on AI, and half say a performance gap is emerging between employees who embrace AI to reimagine how work gets done, and those only using it for basic tasks or not at all.

• And, nearly half of talent development leaders say their executives are concerned employees do not have the right skills to execute on business strategy.

Recruiters have a massive opportunity to solve the skills gap challenge for their companies and harness AI to do so 

• Nearly 9 out of 10 recruiters (86%) in the US and UK say their CEO is relying on them to build the workforce of the future.

• While a third of recruiters say the majority of their teams are AI power users (34%) - those who blend AI and human skills to drive strategic impact aligned to business goals - most (47%) say their teams are only practitioners, using AI to improve productivity in their own roles, but not driving strategic impact. 

• Recruiters who use AI tools say they’re helping them to spend more time as a strategic talent advisor to the business (66%) and improve the candidate experience (64%).

• The risks of falling behind are real: recruiters warn that without building AI skills in the next 12 months, their teams may fall behind competitors (45%), struggle to attract top talent (41%), and miss growth targets (38%).

Recruiters using LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant are leading the way in agentic hiring and transforming hiring at their companies 

• Hiring Assistant, LinkedIn’s AI agent for recruiters, is built into a recruiter’s flow of work, learns their preferences and enables recruiters to leverage AI in their day to day to drive real results. 

• Today, recruiters using LinkedIn’s Hiring Assistant are saving 4+ hours per role, reviewing 62% fewer profiles, and seeing a 69% improvement in InMail acceptance rates. 

• Companies including AMD, Aurecon, Chewy, Expedia Group, Fabletics, Insite, Jacobs, MediaNews Group, Microsoft, Siemens and Wipro are using it today to transform hiring.

• LinkedIn’s customer Insite reported a 20% increase in revenue, directly tied to placements made through Hiring Assistant.

Recruiters who are ’AI power users’ are setting the pace for agentic hiring" said Mark Lobosco, Vice President of LinkedIn Talent Solutions. "When we designed Hiring Assistant over a year ago, we wanted to create a conversational and intuitive product that learns the unique preferences of each and every recruiter using it. Hiring Assistant’s personalization, fueled by our real-time data and network of over 1 billion people, is enabling recruiters to become AI power users and transform hiring at their organizations" 

LinkedIn is rolling out new features to Hiring Assistant to help hirers find the best talent for their roles: 

• New Microsoft Teams integration to make collaboration easier: One of the most critical aspects to finding the right candidate are the conversations between the recruiter and hiring manager, but the intake process can take hours. That’s why LinkedIn is making collaboration easier by bringing Hiring Assistant into Microsoft Teams. With Hiring Assistant now in the flow of work, recruiters and hiring managers can collaborate in real time, as opposed to spending hours coordinating candidate reviews or jumping between systems. Now, hiring managers can review recommended candidates and provide feedback directly in Teams, and Hiring Assistant will adjust the search, learn from it and provide updated top candidates. Hirers will save time and can move to the sourcing stage of the hiring process even faster. It will begin rolling out to customers over the next few months. 

And over the next year, we’ll continue to explore how we can build on this integration so if recruiters and hiring managers want to chat, they can simply add Hiring Assistant to their call and it will follow along, capture context and adjust the search accordingly.

• New Applicant Tracking System (ATS) integration capabilities to evaluate all candidates in one place. Hirers spend 3-5 hours a day sifting through applications, jumping from one system to the next. By connecting LinkedIn with a recruiter’s Applicant Tracking System in Hiring Assistant, hirers can evaluate every candidate - whether sourced on LinkedIn or their ATS - in one unified place to get smarter matches and speed up shortlisting. LinkedIn will be introducing this integration with the following partners: Greenhouse, Lever, SmartRecruiters, Teamtailor, Tracker, Workable, Workday, Zoho and more. 

Greenhouse helps companies consistently find and hire the right talent. As a proud partner with LinkedIn on the ATS integration with Hiring Assistant, we’re connecting workflows, reducing manual work, and surfacing richer candidate data in Greenhouse—keeping recruiters focused on best-fit talent and faster hiring" said Daniel Chait, CEO at Greenhouse. 

We believe a superior recruiter and candidate experience is key for winning the war for top talent" said David Wachtel, general manager, talent products at Workday. "Our extended collaboration with LinkedIn is centered on eliminating complexity and delivering a truly connected, intuitive experience across our platforms. When the experience is flawless, organizations are empowered to focus on hiring the best talent, faster"

• New Automated Prescreening Tool to help recruiters save time and focus on the most important, meaningful work. Today, hirers spend four hours on initial screening calls that focus on basic questions like where someone lives and if they’re willing to relocate. That’s why LinkedIn built automated prescreening in Hiring Assistant, available globally starting last month. It will ask initial screening information set by the recruiter so hirers can focus their time on the candidate conversations that already meet the pre-screening requirements.

And over the next year, we’ll be rolling out new scheduling and voice screening capabilities to help hirers connect with top candidates even faster. Once a recruiter confirms a candidate is a good fit, they can work with Hiring Assistant to schedule an interview. Or if they’re ready to move the conversation forward immediately, Hiring Assistant will be able to do an initial voice screening with the candidate. We are testing this today with our AI agent for small business hiring.  

LinkedIn is also rolling out new tools to help job seekers connect with hirers. Premium subscribers now apply to fewer low-match jobs thanks to improved matching and, with nearly 100 million members with verifications on LinkedIn, recruiters can connect with greater confidence, knowing they’re engaging with real, trusted professionals. 

Methodology

LinkedIn’s Executive Confidence Index (ECI) is an online survey taken every quarter by ~5,000 LinkedIn members (at the VP-level or above) in 11 Countries (US, India, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, Brazil, France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands). The most recent wave ran from June 11-25, 2025. Members are randomly sampled and must be opted into research to participate. We analyze data in aggregate and will always respect member privacy. Data is weighted by Seniority and Industry to ensure fair representation of executives on the platform. The results represent the world as seen through the lens of LinkedIn’s membership; variances between LinkedIn’s membership and the overall market population are not accounted for.

The recruiter research was conducted by Censuswide, with 1,000 Talent Acquisition professionals in full-time or part-time employment in the UK and USA in September 2025. Censuswide abide by and employ members of the Market Research Society which is based on the ESOMAR principles. Censuswide are members of the British Polling Council