Yes, AI Can Do About 80 Per Cent of My Job

The figures come from The Access Group's AI in Recruitment 2026 Outlook, a survey of 159 agency leaders across ANZ and the UK. It also found we use AI most for writing job ads, at 70 per cent, and least for reporting and analytics, at 25 per cent.

I don't run volume. I do bespoke search — one role at a time, worked and delivered by me — which you'd think would make the question easy to wave away. It doesn't. When a client asks whether AI is going to replace me, I'd rather answer honestly than reassuringly. About 80 per cent of my week, probably, and some of it already has. It's the other 20 per cent they're really paying for.

What AI actually takes off my desk

The research and the admin — and it should. Mapping who is actually out there across Australia's AI hiring surge. Drafting a first-pass position description. Scheduling, formatting, note-taking, tracking who has moved where. I want all of it automated, and I've said so before — the best thing AI agents give a CPO isn't efficiency, it's time.

The pattern work, mostly. Skills adjacency, salary comparisons, spotting that "AI Engineer" means three different jobs at three different employers. In a field that's barely three years old, that saves me hours.

The 20 per cent that doesn't automate

Judgement. A brief that says "AI Lead" and a business that needs a hands-on engineer are two different hires. No tool has caught that for me. It comes out of a conversation where someone asks the uncomfortable question — most of how to hire an AI Lead without getting it wrong. Same with the role nobody's hiring for yet: you can't screen for a job nobody has defined.

Relationship. A candidate rings you at nine at night because their employer has just matched the offer, and suddenly they're not sure. They don't need help with the money — they've done that sum already. They need someone to ask why they started looking eleven months ago, and whether any of that has changed. Ten minutes, and it decides the placement either way. No tool is having that conversation.

Accountability. When a hire comes apart at month four, someone sits in front of the client and owns it — works out what was misread in the brief and wears the cost of fixing it. Software doesn't do that, and it isn't the one who has to ring the candidate.

Why compliance actually lands on a person

Australian HR is nowhere near as automated as the noise suggests. QUT and AHRI found only 3.4 per cent of organisations use AI to screen and shortlist outright — and 49 per cent have no AI policy at all.

Meanwhile the APSC's principles for AI in APS recruitment say agencies stay responsible for every recruitment decision and can't delegate that responsibility to a tool. They bind Commonwealth agencies, not your business, but they're a fair signal of where the line is being drawn — worth reading before you check how AI-ready you actually are.

What this actually means for your next hire

Automate the 80 per cent. Please. Then ask whoever you've engaged what they do with the 20 that's left, and whether they'd put their name to it. That question separates a partner from a processing service, and I'd want it answered before signing anything, fractional or permanent.

If the answer is "we use AI end to end", you haven't hired a recruiter. You've licensed software with a nicer invoice. Here's how we actually work with employers.

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