Frontline job seekers are broadly willing to be screened, scheduled, and communicated with by AI, according to a Fountain-commissioned survey of 1,014 U.S. frontline workers conducted by Propeller Insights in June. Just 24.1 percent oppose AI in hiring outright, while 38.3 percent say they are very or somewhat open to AI-run interviews. The real divide is not for or against AI, it is transparent or not: nearly three in four workers said how clearly a company explains its AI use directly shapes whether they trust that employer.
The trust gap tracks a communication failure that predates AI. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they were ghosted after multiple rounds of interviews, and 32 percent got no feedback at all in their most recent job search. Twenty percent named that silence as their single biggest complaint about the hiring process, and nearly one in five said they were specifically frustrated by automated rejections that offered no explanation. Fountain CEO Sean Behr summarized the ask directly: “Tell me where I stand. Tell me who decides. Follow through when you say you will.”
Workers’ comfort with AI varies by task, not blanket approval or rejection: 40 percent are comfortable with AI scheduling interviews and 38 percent with AI handling role communication, but only 29 percent are comfortable letting AI screen candidates outright. That comfort roughly doubles, to 48 percent, when a human reviews the final decision, and 42 percent want a standing option to request a human at any point in the process.
The finding lands as recruiting-technology vendors are already rebuilding products around mandatory human sign-off to satisfy state and city AI-hiring disclosure laws. Fountain’s data suggests that requirement and worker preference now point the same direction: transparency and a visible human checkpoint are becoming table stakes for frontline hiring technology, not just a compliance workaround.
Source: Fountain
