Greenhouse Has Entered into a Definitive Agreement to Acquire Ezra AI Labs, Bringing Conversational AI to the Hiring Process

Structured, voice-led conversations give candidates a fairer shot and give recruiters a richer signal

NEW YORK, May 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Greenhouse, the leading hiring platform, today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Ezra AI Labs, a voice AI interviewer that delivers structured, on-demand conversations that feel natural rather than robotic. Once closed, the acquisition will deepen Greenhouse's ability to help companies identify genuine talent in a job market overwhelmed by AI-generated applications. The acquisition is expected to close this quarter, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. 

Applications per recruiter on Greenhouse have spiked 412% since 2023. At the same time, 74% of candidates now use AI in their job search, and 46% say their trust in the hiring process has decreased in the past year. It's never been harder for recruiters to distinguish qualified candidates from the noise, and never been harder for strong candidates to stand out.

Companies have turned to AI interviewing to manage the volume, but the first wave of AI-led interviews has largely failed candidates. According to Greenhouse's 2026 Candidate AI Interview Report, 63% of job seekers have now faced an AI interview, yet just one in every five believe most employers are using AI responsibly. Too often, they're not told when AI is involved, bias hasn't been mitigated but scaled, and clunky, one-way video interviews have made the process feel awkward and robotic. Ezra AI Labs was built on the opposite premise: a natural-sounding voice conversation where candidates know what's happening, know what's being measured, and get a fair shot to show who they are.

Today, most applicants never make it past the application, with fewer than 7% getting an interview. Ezra changes that by extending Greenhouse's structured hiring approach to the very first stage of the process, where volume is highest and where strong candidates are most likely to be overlooked. With Ezra, more applicants get a conversation, and recruiters get a richer signal than a resume alone can provide.

"Hiring today is still fundamentally the same process it was thirty years ago, it just moved online. Resumes used to be paper, now they're PDFs. That's not transformation, that's modernization," said Daniel Chait, CEO and Co-founder of Greenhouse. "Even as AI has reshaped so many areas of work, AI interviewing has been held back by the limitations of the technology, viewed as clunky, robotic, and unfair. Ezra is the first time AI interviewing has truly lived up to its potential, for both candidates and recruiters. The voice conversation is unlike anything else on the market. It delivers what the rest of the category has been promising and failing at: a better experience for candidates, fairer evaluation, and a real signal for recruiters."

"Hiring is one of the most consequential decisions companies make, and yet the first wave of AI in hiring made it worse, not better. It scaled bias, hid how decisions were being made, and created experiences that felt robotic and unfair," said Ophir Samson, CEO, CTO, and Founder of Ezra AI Labs. "We built Ezra to do the opposite: to give every candidate a voice and give recruiters a structured, transparent signal to make better decisions. Voice matters because people reveal far more in conversation than they ever can on a resume. With Greenhouse, we can now bring that approach to the scale required to fundamentally improve how hiring works for everyone."

"Structured hiring has always meant that every candidate gets the same fair, consistent evaluation. But until now, that principle hasn't been possible to apply at the very first stage of the process, where the volume is highest and where the strongest candidates are most likely to be overlooked," said Greenhouse CPO Meredith Johnson. "Ezra lets us extend that rigor to the front of the funnel. Every conversation is tailored to the job and follows the same structured criteria, every evaluation is explainable, and every hiring decision stays with the team. Candidates know AI is involved, they know what it's measuring, and they get a conversation instead of talking into a void. That's what responsible AI in hiring looks like."

How It Works
Ezra AI Labs conducts structured, AI-led voice interviews with candidates on demand, available any time. Recruiting teams can customize each interview for the role's requirements and team culture, so every candidate is asked the same questions and evaluated against consistent criteria. Ezra AI Labs has invested heavily in voice technology to make the experience feel natural and human, not robotic. Unlike generic AI screening tools that rely on keyword matching from a single language model, Ezra AI Labs' approach generates unique, role-specific evaluations with structured scores and transcripts for each candidate. Every output is transparent and explainable, aligned with Greenhouse's principle that if AI can't explain how it reached a conclusion, it doesn't belong in hiring.

For recruiters:

• Integrates directly into existing ATS workflows with candidate evaluations, structured scores, and transcripts
• Screens a broader pool of candidates without extending time-to-hire or overwhelming recruiter capacity
• Detects AI-generated or scripted interview responses to maintain process integrity
• Provides structured, competency-aligned notes that make it easier to give candidates specific, meaningful feedback when they don't advance

For candidates:

• Interview on demand, from anywhere, at a time that works for them
• Share their experience in their own words, instead of being filtered by resume keywords
• Complete a structured interview with consistent questions tied to the role
• Ask questions about the role, team, and company
• Receive consistent evaluation based on the substance of their responses
• Ability to opt out at any stage

Ezra AI Labs' technology brings voice and conversational AI to the Greenhouse platform as a new core capability. In the immediate term, Ezra will remain available as a standalone offering for both new and existing customers. Over the coming months we will further integrate Ezra with Greenhouse's AI capabilities, including interviewing, AI-powered talent matching, and improving broader candidate experience.

AI Privacy, Security, and Compliance
Greenhouse AI is built on the same commitment to privacy, security, and compliance that runs through everything the company does. Greenhouse holds ISO 27001, ISO 27701, and ISO 42001 certifications, the last of which is the AI-specific standard for governance, accountability, fairness, and transparency. Greenhouse does not use customer personal data to train its internal LLMs, proprietary models, or third-party models. The AI-powered Talent Matching feature undergoes independent monthly bias audits conducted by Warden AI across ten protected classes, with results publicly available. Customers can toggle any AI feature on or off at the org level, and candidates can request manual review. Greenhouse's AI Principles are available here.

About Greenhouse:
Greenhouse is the leading hiring platform on a mission to make hiring work for everyone.

Greenhouse helps more than 7,500 companies, including HubSpot, Anthropic, Gong, Coinbase, and the NFL, to get measurably better at hiring, for every role, every team, and every candidate. Our industry-leading, AI-powered software supports every stage of the hiring process, from sourcing to interviewing to onboarding. Greenhouse's structured hiring approach enables internal alignment and confident, data-backed decisions, giving companies everything they need to hire top talent quickly, consistently, and fairly.

Greenhouse has won numerous awards, including Fortune Best Workplaces, Inc. Magazine Best Workplace, Glassdoor #1 Best Place to Work, Forbes Cloud 100, Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 5000, and TIME Best Inventions, and is consistently ranked the #1 ATS on G2 across Overall, Enterprise, Mid-Market, and EMEA categories.

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About Ezra AI Labs:
Ezra is a voice AI interviewing platform that helps recruiting teams identify qualified candidates through structured voice conversations. The platform integrates with existing ATS systems to automate initial screening while allowing candidates to stand out through conversation rather than resume optimization. Founded in 2024, Ezra raised seed funding from PennyJar Capital, LMNT, and a16z Speedrun, who backed the company's vision for AI-powered interviewing at the earliest stage. Learn more at www.ezrarecruiting.com

SOURCE Greenhouse Software, Inc.