Why are more companies adding in-person interview rounds in 2026?
By Pinal Dave | Last updated: 2026-08-01
TL;DR: Karat found in-person interview requests jumped from 5% to 30% of roles between 2024 and 2025, mainly because remote-only interviews became easier to game with AI answer tools, deepfakes, and impersonation. It is a real but costly workaround; AI interview proctoring solves the same trust problem without requiring travel or on-site logistics.
The short answer
For several years, fully remote hiring processes were treated as a settled, efficient default. That assumption broke down as AI tools made it easier to fake competence during a remote screen: live answer generation, virtual cameras, and even impersonation became accessible enough that companies stopped trusting what they could not directly observe in a room. Karat's data capturing this shift is stark: the share of roles requiring an in-person round went from 5% to 30% in a single year.
This is a rational, if expensive, response to a real problem. It is not a preference for old-fashioned hiring, it is companies trying to restore a trust signal that remote video interviews used to provide before AI tools became widely accessible and easy to use undetected.
The evidence
- Karat: in-person interview requests jumped from 5% to 30% of roles between 2024 and 2025.
- Karat: 80% of candidates use LLMs during coding tests that explicitly ban them, a major driver of the shift back toward in-person verification.
- Fabric (19,368 interviews): 38.5% of candidates flagged for AI-cheating behavior, reinforcing that the underlying trust problem driving this trend is widespread, not anecdotal.
- CodeSignal: technical assessment cheating rate doubled year over year, from 16% to 35%, adding further pressure on companies to find a way to verify skill they can trust.
In-person rounds vs. AI-proctored remote rounds
| Factor | In-person interview round | AI-proctored remote interview |
|---|---|---|
| Solves the trust problem | Yes, direct observation | Yes, identity and behavior monitoring |
| Candidate travel required | Yes, often at candidate or company expense | No |
| Scales to global, high-volume hiring | Poorly, logistics-heavy | Well, no physical constraints |
| Setup cost | High, scheduling and venue logistics | Low, paste a link or join a call |
| Candidate experience impact | High friction, time off work, travel | Low friction, zero installs |
Step-by-step: deciding between the two approaches
- Identify why remote trust broke down for a specific role. If it is specifically about verifying live coding skill or answer authenticity, proctoring addresses that directly.
- Weigh the true cost of in-person rounds, including candidate travel, interviewer time, and the narrower funnel of candidates willing or able to attend.
- Pilot AI proctoring on a subset of roles before committing to a full in-person policy shift. Compare flag rates and outcomes against the in-person alternative.
- Reserve in-person rounds for the highest-stakes, final-stage decisions, using proctored remote rounds earlier in the funnel to reduce cost without losing the same trust signal.
- Track both hiring quality and drop-off rate. Requiring in-person rounds too early in the funnel can lose strong candidates who cannot travel, which is a real, measurable cost.
FAQ
Is requiring in-person interviews actually more effective than proctoring? Both address the same core trust problem. In-person interviews rely on direct human observation; proctoring relies on identity verification and behavior signals, and the two produce comparable evidence in different formats.
Does this trend apply to all industries equally? Software engineering has shown the sharpest shift given the visibility of live coding cheating, but the underlying trust concern extends to any role where remote assessment is used.
Is in-person interviewing sustainable for high-volume or global hiring? It is difficult to sustain at scale, since it requires travel logistics that do not exist for fully remote or international candidates, which is why many companies use it selectively rather than universally.
Could this trend reverse if AI detection technology improves? It is plausible. As proctoring and identity verification technology closes the trust gap remotely, some of the pressure driving in-person requirements could ease.
What is the main downside companies see from requiring in-person rounds? Reduced candidate pool, added cost, and slower hiring timelines, particularly for roles competing for talent that expects a fully remote process.