Meta has officially begun testing a radical shift in its recruitment process by allowing job applicants to use AI assistants during technical interviews — a move that breaks with Big Tech tradition and signals what may be the next frontier in AI-integrated hiring.

The pilot program, first reported by 404 Media and confirmed by Business Insider, is dubbed “AI-Enabled Interviews.” According to a recent internal post, Meta is developing a new kind of coding interview where candidates can use AI tools as they tackle real-time problems, mimicking the AI-supported environment they would work in as Meta engineers.

“This is more representative of the developer environment that our future employees will work in, and also makes LLM-based cheating less effective,” the post read.

This bold experiment marks a new high in how AI is being woven into hiring, not just behind the scenes, but right in the hands of applicants. While companies across sectors have been integrating AI to automate parts of the recruitment process — including resume screening, candidate matching, and skill assessments — allowing AI during the interview itself is a significant departure from current norms.

Meta appears to be challenging the outdated notion that external assistance during interviews constitutes cheating by letting candidates use AI in real time.  Instead, the company is recognizing AI as a legitimate tool — not unlike a calculator for a math test — that skilled workers are expected to know how to use efficiently.

“We’re obviously focused on using AI to help engineers with their day-to-day work, so it should be no surprise that we’re testing how to provide these tools to applicants during interviews,” a Meta spokesperson said.

Meta’s move comes even as other major players in tech remain cautious, or even hostile, toward AI use during job interviews. Amazon has reportedly instructed internal recruiters to disqualify any candidates caught using AI during the interview process. Anthropic, the AI safety research company behind Claude, initially imposed a similar ban on AI use by applicants, only to reverse its decision amid pushback.

So far, no other major Big Tech firm has embraced AI use during interviews the way Meta now has — and it remains unclear whether they will follow suit.

Raising the Bar for What’s Considered Cheating

Allowing candidates to access AI during interviews naturally reopens the debate about what constitutes cheating in the hiring process. Meta appears to be arguing that if engineers rely on AI tools in their daily work, then it’s only logical to evaluate them in that same context.

Instead of banning AI, the company is working to ensure its interview system tests how well candidates collaborate with AI, judging them on their judgment, input design, and decision-making rather than rote memorization or solving problems in a vacuum.

This shift fits neatly into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s long-term vision of AI’s role in software development. During a January appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Zuckerberg predicted that by 2025, AI tools would be capable of functioning like midlevel engineers, able to write code and assist with complex tasks.

“Probably in 2025, we at Meta, as well as the other companies that are basically working on this, are going to have an AI that can effectively be a sort of midlevel engineer that you have at your company that can write code,” he said.

Internally, Meta has already begun deploying AI to streamline its recruitment operations. According to internal documents, the company is using AI to automate coding skill tests, generate interview prompts, and match candidates to job roles faster. But the latest move — letting AI into the candidate’s hands — marks a turning point.

Although many may see AI use in interviews as a red flag, particularly as concerns grow over fairness, ethics, and transparency in hiring, others consider the approach revolutionary.

However, Meta’s experiment may push the industry to reconsider whether resisting AI in interviews is sustainable — or even productive — in a world where coding, designing, and engineering are increasingly done in partnership with intelligent machines.