§ The result
iCIMS leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
Rubric v1.0 puts 25 points between iCIMS (ATS-integrated) and Cognisess (Assessment): 55 for iCIMS, 30 for Cognisess. iCIMS 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. Even Bias Audit Transparency, the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Cognisess 20, iCIMS 68, 18% weight), is only 35% of the weighted advantage iCIMS builds across the 7 criteria it leads.
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
iCIMS
Enterprise talent-acquisition / applicant tracking platform (the iCIMS Talent Cloud) that adds optional AI features - Candidate Ranking, Talent Match, and a GPT-powered Copilot - to source, rank, and engage candidates.
§ The record
Cognisess is filed under Assessment AI, iCIMS under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Screening.
Both are in scope of NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, EU AI Act and Colorado AI Act. Only Cognisess is in scope of Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Cognisess | iCIMS |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | GB | US |
| Founded | 2011 | 2000 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 35% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · iCIMS 68
8.6 weighted points to iCIMS
20% weight · 61% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · iCIMS 58
6.6 weighted points to iCIMS
15% weight · 72% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · iCIMS 38
2.7 weighted points to iCIMS
15% weight · 80% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · iCIMS 56
2.1 weighted points to iCIMS
12% weight · 88% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · iCIMS 58
1.9 weighted points to iCIMS
8% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · iCIMS 62
1.8 weighted points to iCIMS
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · iCIMS 42
1.2 weighted points to iCIMS
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -24.9 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 24.9 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -25 beside that -24.9.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus iCIMS.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | iCIMS | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 58 | -33 | -6.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 68 | -48 | -8.6 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 38 | -18 | -2.7 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 56 | -14 | -2.1 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -1.9 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 42 | -10 | -1.2 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 62 | -22 | -1.8 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 55 (F) | -25 | -24.9 |
§ 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 | iCIMS | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 3 | 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 | 4 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on a separate domain | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 4 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 21 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 21 | 3 | 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; iCIMS has 24 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 21 with a source URL, 3 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 50 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 24 for iCIMS, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- iCIMS last reviewed
- June 7, 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