Chipotle's AI hiring tool is helping it find new workers 75% faster

The re indicates that In this articleCMG your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNTA "Now Hiring" sign at a Chipotle restaurant in San Francisco, California, US, on Friday, Jan

On the other hand, Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc, in this volatile climate

At the same time, Is scheduled to release earnings figures on February 4

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesFrom robots that help make chips to those that prepare avocados for guacamole, Chipotle is using AI to make its restaurants more efficient while allowing workers to focus on other tasks

Moreover, The fast casual restaurant chain is also applying AI to the cess of hiring workers, allowing managers to stay more focused on running their restaurants

Chipotle added an AI-powered platform to its hiring cess that it dubbed "Ava Cado

However, " The platform, created by AI HR firm Paradox, is essentially a conversational chatbot that interacts with job candidates, answers questions the company and the job, collects information them, and ultimately can schedule interviews with human hiring managers

Furthermore, It can also converse in English, Spanish, French, and German

Chipotle chief human resources officer Ilene Eskenazi said the company's growth plan was a factor in the decision to use the AI hiring nology

Making sure there is no friction in that cess is key (an important development)

Nevertheless, Prior to rolling out Ava Cado, Chipotle managers were tasked with scheduling all of the interviews, both from people who applied online as well as during hiring events or when people came in seeking employment (which is quite significant)

That led to a lot of administrative work for managers

Since introducing the AI chatbot, Eskenazi said Chipotle's number of applicants "has increased dramatically" and the company is also seeing an 85% application completion rate

Ava Cado helps the job candidate by populating the application with the information they vide, cutting down the average time it takes to complete at application to around eight minutes. "That has greatly increased our funnel so that we're serving up many more candidates for our managers to evaluate," Eskenazi said, in light of current trends

Additionally, "Maintaining our pipeline of candidates is always something that we're very focused on," she added

Moreover, At the same time, Ava Cado is also tasked with managing the interview schedules for managers, who are able to block out certain times during the week and candidates can then be scheduled based on their availability (noteworthy indeed)

Moreover, Perhaps most importantly, Eskenazi said, is that while Ava Cado walks candidates through the application cess, it also s information Chipotle and the job with them, so that "they're much more informed what the job really is, and so then we know that the applicants are that much more interested in the job by the time they're meeting a hiring manager in person. "That's helping Chipotle hire faster, reducing time to hire by up to 75%, CEO Scott Boatwright told CNBC's Jim Cramer earlier this year. "We leaned into an AI hiring assistant from Paradox six months ago that has put us on better footing from a staffing perspective," Boatwright said (this bears monitoring) (an important development). "And we've been, in the eight years I've been in the organization, pushing past numbers we thought were all-time highs just last year, amid market uncertainty. "Paradox has roughly 1,000 clients that use its conversational AI platform at some point in the hiring and recruiting cess, including 7-Eleven, General Motors, Nestle, Marriott International and Lowe's

Eskenazi said that Chipotle has been seeing candidates go from application to ready to hire within three and a half days thanks to Ava Cado, which previously could have been up to 12 days (noteworthy indeed)

Still, much how workers are concerned AI taking their jobs, there are some concerns how AI is increasingly being integrated in the hiring experience, whether that's through screening of resumes or even speaking directly to an AI powered recruiter

Moreover, There are also potential concerns the security of applicant data when interacting with AI recruiters — earlier this month, Paradox reported that a security vulnerability was detected by reers, potentially exposing applicant names, addresses and info

Paradox said none of the data was leaked or made public

Wired had previously reported the affected client was McDonald's

Additionally, Chipotle's Ava Cado AI does not screen resumes and does not make employment decisions, and Eskenazi said the company has a strong interview and training cess that its managers will continue to lead and make the decisions for

However, she said, the company is looking to expand Ava Cado's capabilities, whether that's sharing s with candidates to give them a better view into what working at Chipotle is, or giving applicants a mpt to also consider other locations where there may be openings nearby (noteworthy indeed)

At the same time, There are ways AI can also be integrated into the company's learning and development graming. "We've gotten a lot of anecdotal back from both general managers and candidates, and it's been incredibly strong," Eskenazi said. "I personally have been pleasantly surprised by how much candidates have enjoyed interacting with Ava

However, "watch now1:0701:07Only 50% of our avocados are from Mexico, says Chipotle CEO on tariff impactMad Money with Jim Cramer.