§ The result
Stepstone takes the total, Avature takes more of the criteria.
Stepstone (Screening) edges Avature (ATS-integrated) by 1 point under rubric v1.0, 49 to 48. Avature leads more of the criteria than Stepstone — 5 to 1 — but Bias Audit Transparency, which Stepstone leads, carries 18% of the rubric, and the weighted sum still falls to Stepstone. One criterion, Bias Audit Transparency, is both the widest raw gap (Avature 40, Stepstone 50) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 18% weight it makes up 100% of the weighted advantage Stepstone holds across the 1 criterion it leads.
Vendor profile
Avature
Avature is an enterprise talent acquisition and talent management platform (recruiting CRM, ATS, onboarding and internal mobility) with built-in AI for semantic search, explainable weighted candidate matching and ranking, candidate fraud detection and configurable recruiting agents.
Vendor profile
Stepstone
Stepstone is a German job marketplace whose Stepstone Recruit employer platform includes an AI Screening Agent, which rates each application against requirements taken from the job ad, and a Talent Finder, which recommends candidates from a CV database of more than 4 million profiles.
§ The record
Avature is filed under ATS-integrated AI, Stepstone under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Avature | Stepstone |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | DE |
| Founded | 2004 | 1996 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 56% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Avature 40 · Stepstone 50
1.8 weighted points to Stepstone
15% weight · 71% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Avature 58 · Stepstone 55
0.4 weighted points to Avature
15% weight · 80% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Avature 32 · Stepstone 30
0.3 weighted points to Avature
12% weight · 87% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Avature 60 · Stepstone 58
0.2 weighted points to Avature
12% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Avature 40 · Stepstone 38
0.2 weighted points to Avature
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Avature 60 · Stepstone 58
0.2 weighted points to Avature
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -0.4 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 3.2 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -1 beside that -0.4.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Avature minus Stepstone.
| Category | Weight | Avature | Stepstone | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 55 | 55 | - | - |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 40 | 50 | -10 | -1.8 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 32 | 30 | +2 | +0.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 58 | 55 | +3 | +0.4 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 40 | 38 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 60 | 58 | +2 | +0.2 |
| Total | 100% | 48 (F) | 49 (F) | -1 | -0.4 |
§ Evidence
Cited sources and documented absences, criterion by criterion.
An absence is a finding, not a blank: the reviewer looked for a named artefact and recorded that it is not located. Where a source sits is a fact about hosting only.
| Criterion | Weight | Avature | Stepstone | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 3 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 28 | 6 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 29 | 4 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Avature has 34 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 28 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; Stepstone has 33 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 29 with a source URL, 4 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Avature and Stepstone sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 67 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 34 for Avature, across 3 distinct source domains, and 33 for Stepstone, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Avature last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Stepstone last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
HireAIScore scores are editorial research, not legal advice, and no vendor pays for placement, scoring or removal — see the methodology, conflicts policy and terms.
§ Where next