Where AI assistance ends

Where the line falls

Of 30 selective employers that publish a rule on candidates' use of AI, 24 allow AI help with the written application and none forbid it; 17 forbid AI in interviews and none allow it.

Full finding: counts are of the 30 employers, out of 67 checked, whose official pages address candidates' own use of AI, observed 23 September 2026. "Allowed" includes allowed with limits. "Forbidden" includes forbidden unless the employer authorises it. A purposive list, not a sample; published rules are not evidence of enforcement.

6 of the 17 interview prohibitions name recorded, video or virtual interviews: UBS, HSBC, Macquarie Group, BlackRock, Bain & Company and UK Civil Service Fast Stream. Exceptions where AI is built into an assessment by the employer: Clifford Chance, Deloitte UK, BlackRock and Amazon.

AI on the other side of the table

McKinsey & Company and KPMG UK disclose AI-mediated interview stages while restricting candidates’ own AI assistance in assessed responses. McKinsey describes an optional chatbot that checks role eligibility against predefined criteria and is reviewed by a recruiter; KPMG describes an AI avatar asking prerecorded questions, with responses scored by staff. These are different mechanisms.

What the employer’s AI actually does

The phrase “AI interviews candidates” hides different functions. These four employer statements were rechecked on 27 September 2026. They illustrate mechanisms, not prevalence; the candidate-use boundary may apply at a different stage from the employer tool.

Official employer descriptions; observed 27 September 2026. WGI has not audited deployment, scoring validity, outcomes or enforcement. Routes and markets differ. This comparison is a functional taxonomy, not a four-employer rate or a verified policy change.

What "people decide" means, employer by employer

16 employers publish a statement about human oversight. The statements differ in strength; the grade is WGI's classification of the quoted wording.

What the evidence establishes

Stage by stage: what each employer says

Codes describe what the official page states. "Not stated" means the pages reviewed are silent on that stage, not that AI is allowed there.

Checked, no official statement located (31)

Not located on public official pages on 23 September 2026. This is not evidence that no policy exists; employers may brief candidates privately.

• Baker McKenzie Law
• Bank of America Banking
• Blackstone Private equity
• Bridgewater Associates Hedge fund
• Centerview Partners Banking (advisory)
• Citadel Hedge fund / market maker
• Davis Polk Law Re-checked 23 Sep 2026: davispolk.com London training pages rendered, no AI statement; careers.davispolk.com returned an error page.
• Evercore Banking (advisory)
• EY UK Big Four / professional services
• Freshfields Law Legacy graduate site may be JavaScript-rendered.
• Goldman Sachs Banking Secondary: June 2025 press reports of a campus-recruitment email prohibiting external sources incl. ChatGPT in interviews. US candidate privacy PDF not parsed.
• Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer Law Some pages not readable (robots).
• Hogan Lovells Law
• Jane Street Market maker
• Jefferies Banking
• JPMorganChase Banking
• Kearney Consulting Re-checked in full browser render 23 Sep 2026: no AI statement on recruiting-process or interview pages.
• Kirkland & Ellis Law
• KKR Private equity
• L.E.K. Consulting Consulting
• Latham & Watkins Law
• Lazard Banking (advisory) ATS FAQ behind verification page.
• Linklaters Law
• Macfarlanes Law Official page describes a Cappfinity job simulation; not described as AI.
• Morgan Stanley Banking
• Oliver Wyman Consulting
• Paul Weiss Law
• Sidley Austin Law Re-checked in full browser render 23 Sep 2026: no selection AI rule; London training contract includes an AI Knowledge Lab seat (training content, not a selection policy).
• Simmons & Simmons Law
• Weil Law
• White & Case Law

What changed since version 1.0

WGI re-observed the eight institutions in version 1.0 (first observed 9 to 19 September 2026) on 23 September 2026. No policy change was verified in that window. One official page moved (A&O Shearman's London FAQ). Two version 1.0 codings were corrected (BCG's own AI uses were broader than coded; Clifford Chance's human-review wording is conditional on passing the online assessments). A two-to-fourteen-day window is too short to expect change; the value of this baseline is the next re-observation.

Dated official items in the register

• 4 November 2025 Bank of England: Application tips page (dated) asks candidates not to use AI in live interviews. Official page
• 1 December 2025 Mishcon de Reya: Announces trial of Bright Apply, an AI chat interview, for the 2026 Vacation Scheme; FAQ states the AI makes no decisions. Official page
• 22 January 2026 Amazon: Newsroom article describes coding assessments with an interactive AI assistant and a pilot of interview recording and transcription. Official page
• 19 March 2026 BNP Paribas (UK): Careers FAQ (last modified) states UK recruitment teams do not use AI to process applications. Official page
• 8 July 2026 Standard Chartered: Early-careers FAQ (last modified) discloses AI scoring of the Coding Simulation and states AI does not evaluate video responses. Official page
• 1 August 2026 McKinsey & Company: AI-assisted interview privacy notice effective: chatbot-conducted interview route; human recruiter review before any rejection. Official page

Watch list (secondary reports awaiting an official source)

• UBS Financial Times report (Sep 2026) that 2027 Global Banking and Markets graduates must evidence practical AI use. If confirmed officially, this is the first entry requirement for AI capability in the register. Secondary; official source not located on 23 Sep 2026. Re-check monthly.
• McKinsey & Company Press reports from January 2026 of a pilot final-round case interview using McKinsey's internal AI tool Lilli. Secondary; official pages reviewed carry only an 'unless specifically permitted' exception.
• Goldman Sachs June 2025 press reports of a campus-recruitment email prohibiting external sources, including ChatGPT, in interviews. Secondary; no official public page located on 23 Sep 2026.
• Unilever Vendor and third-party case studies describe AI-scored digital interviews in earlier graduate hiring; the 2026 UK and Ireland Future Leaders page states AI is not used as a screening tool. Not a governed pair: earlier state is vendor-published and the scope differs. Needs an employer-published earlier source.

Questions this tracker answers

What we can say, and what we cannot

Supported:

• We located official statements on AI in selection for 36 of the 67 employers checked.
• 18 of the 36 employers with a located statement prohibit candidate AI in at least one online test or interview.
• These are published rules observed on 23 September 2026.

Not supported:

• The other 31 employers allow AI. (We did not locate a statement; that is not the same as no policy.)
• Any employer can detect AI use.
• Every recruiter follows the published rule identically.
• These counts describe all selective employers.

Each headline finding has a stable citation object with its n, date and limits: citation objects (JSON).