7 Things We Learned From Top Healthcare CHROs About AI Agents in Recruiting

Our Co-Founder, Yaniv Shimoni, recently hosted a live SHRM panel with Dr. Laura Dannels (CHRO, UCSF Health), Joe Gage (CAO and CHRO, Bon Secours Mercy Health) and Matt Kurth (SVP and Deputy Chief People Officer, Northwell Health). Their perspectives echoed what we see every day across the health systems already running Take2’s AI agents. Here are seven lessons every healthcare talent acquisition leader should carry into 2027.

1. AI agents can solve the recruiter capacity problem

   Healthcare hiring has a two-sided problem. High-volume roles pull in far more applicants than recruiters can screen, while hard-to-fill roles draw almost none. Recruiters carrying 50+ requisitions end up buried in screens and scheduling instead of chasing the candidates who are hardest to find. AI agents work both sides. On high-volume roles, they run phone screens and book interviews around the clock. On hard-to-fill roles, sourcing agents surface qualified candidates sitting untouched in the ATS or in external databases. Recruiters stop spending hours on calls that go nowhere and put their time into qualified candidates, building the relationships that lead to the best hire for every role.

2. Candidates prefer AI for the first screening conversation

   A Chicago Booth field experiment covering 70,000 job applicants found that among candidates offered a choice of interviewer, 78% picked a voice AI agent over a human recruiter. Across the study, candidates interviewed by AI were also more likely to get an offer and still be in the role 30 days later. For candidates, flexibility drives the preference. A nurse who applies after a Friday night shift can complete a screen at 11 p.m. instead of waiting until Monday for a callback, and without the added pressure of reading an interviewer’s reactions.

3. Speed to candidate decides who gets hired

   Clinicians looking for a change frequently apply to two or three systems at once. In tight markets, the organization that gets an offer out within a few days often wins, and every scheduling delay hands the advantage to a competitor. Faster time to start also lowers vacancy rates, which means less reliance on agency staff and less overtime for teams already stretched thin. Vacancies show up in patient experience, so speed matters well beyond TA.

   

   WATCH: SHRM x Take2's CHRO Roundtable on Agentic AI for Healthcare Recruiting
   
   

4. CHROs see AI as augmenting recruiters, not replacing them

   The health systems moving fastest are building their AI business cases around value recruiters can’t reach today: applicants who never hear back, slow time to offer and early turnover. Healthcare TA teams already run leaner than most industries because of thin margins, and many systems are growing. AI agents let those teams handle more volume without adding headcount at the same pace.

5. Recruiters make better hiring decisions when AI handles the logistics

   Hiring decisions and candidate evaluation stay with people. What changes is the information recruiters have when they make those calls. When agents take on phone screens and scheduling, recruiters get a fuller picture of every candidate and the time to use it, which leads to better fit and lower 90-day turnover. The role shifts toward talent strategy: refining selection criteria, building relationships with hard-to-find clinicians and fixing where the hiring process breaks down.

6. Your best pipeline might already be in your ATS

   Every health system has thousands of past applicants who never got a call. Reactivating them used to mean a massive manual project, so it rarely happened. AI agents can reach those candidates the moment a matching role opens, and the payoff grows over time. When voice AI agents screen every applicant instead of the fraction recruiters have time for, each conversation adds hiring signal to the ATS, so every future search draws on richer data. The same applies to current employees. Internal moves can consume around 30% of recruiting capacity, and agents can proactively reach employees about their next step.

7. Decide what stays human before deciding where AI starts

   Build a one-page map of every HR function, sorted into work that should stay human, work suited to AI agents and work that’s a hybrid. High-admin, manual tasks belong with agents. Work tied to culture and relationships stays with people. Line that map up against your biggest hiring pain, usually hard-to-fill clinical roles first and high-volume roles like EVS and security next, and you have a rollout plan. Early adopters also report no higher dropout from AI phone screens than from recruiter screens.

AI agents are becoming table stakes in healthcare recruiting

In a live poll during the panel, more than half of attendees said they already use AI agents in recruiting or plan to adopt them. CHROs on our panel expect every healthcare recruiter to work alongside AI agents within a few years, because organizations that can’t reach candidates as quickly as their competitors will lose them. The systems adopting now are cutting time to offer, reaching more qualified candidates and building richer ATS data with every screen. Each month of waiting widens that gap, and the systems that hold off will be competing for talent against organizations that got there first.

Watch the full panel replay.