Business locked in expensive AI ‘arms race’

A big bank, pharmaceutical firm or manufacturer might have the resources to buy in the tech it needs to take advantage of the latest AI, but what about a smaller firm?

Italian start-up Restworld is a recruitment website for catering staff, with a database of 100,000 workers.

Chief technology officer Edoardo Conte was keen to see if AI could benefit the business.

The firm considered building an AI-driven chatbot to communicate with users of the service.

But Mr Conte said that, across thousands of users, “The cost grows very much.”

Instead, it looked at a narrower problem – the issue that candidates don’t always present their experience in the best way.

For example, a candidate might not list waitering as a skill. But the algorithms Mr Conte developed make it easier to uncover additional information, including whether they had applied for and gained a waiting role in the past.

“The AI can deduce that they’re a waiter, or they might be interested in other waiter job offers,” he says.

One roadblock in hospitality recruitment is getting candidates to the interview stage.

So, Mr Conte’s next challenge is to use AI to automate and customise the interview process for its candidates.

The AI might even conduct a “conversation” with candidates and produce summaries to pass onto recruiters.

It might speed up the whole process, which currently can take days, in which time a waiter or chef might have found another job.