§ The result
HiringBranch leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
HiringBranch finishes 22 points clear of Cognisess inside the Assessment cohort under rubric v1.0: 52 against 30. HiringBranch leads every one of the 7 criteria and 3 of them by 20 raw points or more, Bias Audit Transparency among them; Cognisess leads none. Bias Audit Transparency is the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing at once (Cognisess 20, HiringBranch 60, 18% weight), but it accounts for only 32% of the weighted advantage HiringBranch holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Cognisess
UK talent-analytics platform that scores candidates and employees with 50+ game-based and questionnaire assessments and weighted job-fit 'profilers', can auto-pass or auto-reject applicants against score thresholds, and runs recorded video interviews with optional DeepLearn video analytics.
Vendor profile
HiringBranch
HiringBranch is an AI skills-assessment platform that measures 50+ communication and soft skills from candidates' open-ended, conversational job-simulation responses (text and voice) to screen and rank applicants for customer-facing roles.
§ The record
Cognisess and HiringBranch are both filed under Assessment AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Screening.
Both are in scope of NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, EU AI Act, Colorado AI Act and Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Cognisess | HiringBranch |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | GB | CA |
| Founded | 2011 | 2014 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 32% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · HiringBranch 60
7.2 weighted points to HiringBranch
20% weight · 63% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · HiringBranch 60
7.0 weighted points to HiringBranch
15% weight · 73% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · HiringBranch 35
2.3 weighted points to HiringBranch
15% weight · 82% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · HiringBranch 55
1.9 weighted points to HiringBranch
8% weight · 90% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · HiringBranch 64
1.9 weighted points to HiringBranch
12% weight · 96% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · HiringBranch 52
1.2 weighted points to HiringBranch
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · HiringBranch 40
1.0 weighted points to HiringBranch
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -22.5 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 22.5 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -22 beside that -22.5.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus HiringBranch.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | HiringBranch | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 60 | -35 | -7.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 60 | -40 | -7.2 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 35 | -15 | -2.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -1.9 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 52 | -10 | -1.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 40 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 64 | -24 | -1.9 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 52 (F) | -22 | -22.5 |
§ 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 | Cognisess | HiringBranch | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 5 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on a separate domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 21 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 13 | 6 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
Cognisess has 26 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 21 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; HiringBranch has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Cognisess sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 45 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 19 for HiringBranch, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- HiringBranch last reviewed
- July 17, 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