TikTok videos of glitchy AI interviews have gone viral in recent weeks, but don’t worry if you’re due for a job interview soon.
One user, who goes by Freddie, posted a video on May 3 of an AI assistant named “Catherine Appleton” glitching and spewing gibberish during his job interview. As of Thursday, his video had 8.8 million views.
“Should I email them? I was expecting a real human,” he wrote in the caption.
Another TikTok user named Ken shared a clip of her interview, in which the AI assistant repeated the phrase “vertical bar pilates” on loop.
Neither responded to requests for comment from Business Insider.
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“The TikTok videos showcasing glitches or malfunctions are likely either doctored or represent rare, isolated incidents,” said Sriram Iyer, an adjunct senior lecturer at the National University of Singapore Business School.
They “should not be considered a common phenomenon,” he added.
Tan Hong Ming, the deputy head and senior lecturer in the department of analytics and operations at NUS Business School, said social media “tends to amplify things.”
“It can make something appear far more common than it actually is through repetition and viral sharing,” he said.
Tan, who also serves as lead advisor to a Singapore-based AI recruitment firm, said the looping audio is “likely dramatized or re-enacted to drive engagement and shares.” He said he has not come across this specific glitch in AI interviews, but occasional breakdowns aren’t surprising.
Many companies are using AI-powered recruitment tools which are often “wrappers around the same core models or APIs.”
Some of them may not use the latest or most stable versions, which could explain why similar glitches show up across platforms, he said.
Unaizah Obaidellah, a senior lecturer specializing in AI at Malaysia’s University of Malaya, said insufficient or irrelevant data could also be a culprit. If the bots are not trained with enough relevant examples, their quality suffers.
She added that the incidents portrayed on the videos could reflect the larger race to deploy AI faster than we’re ready for, which is “quite worrying.”
AI interviews on the rise
Emily DeJeu, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business who specializes in AI communication and etiquette, told BI earlier this week that AI-powered video interviews are likely to become more common as companies seek to streamline and automate early hiring stages.
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Any time technology promises to save time and money and make everything faster, “we by default pursue it — there’s a kind of inevitability to it,” she said.
Despite what the TikToks might suggest, candidates aren’t necessarily turned off by bots, said Iyer, who has worked in HR tech for 20 years.
What to do if your interview bot glitches
Glitches during AI interviews aren’t just awkward.
“Glitches chip away at trust and can make the hiring process feel impersonal or even unfair,” said Tan, especially if companies are not upfront about conducting an AI interview.
“They undermine the candidate’s experience,” he said, adding that employers need to “build in strong fallback options” and monitor these tools closely in real-world settings.
“Otherwise, what feels like a time-saving solution could quietly become a systemic problem,” he added.
For candidates, the key is not to panic.
If an AI bot malfunctions mid-interview, Tan recommends emailing the hiring manager with a screenshot or recording of what happened.
“Most should offer a redo assuming the candidate isn’t already put off by the idea of being interviewed by a bot in the first place,” he said.
Unaizah, from the University of Malaya, said candidates can also request feedback from the HR team on their interview performance.
If there’s clear evidence the interview wasn’t properly assessed — or wasn’t reviewed by a human — ask for an in-person interview, if possible, she said.
“If all fails or your gut feeling says otherwise, perhaps it’s best to look for other companies,” said Unaizah. “Target companies that prioritize human-centered hiring.”
