§ The result
Lever leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
Under rubric v1.0, Lever (ATS-integrated) opens a 19-point lead on Cognisess (Assessment), 49 to 30. Lever leads every one of the 7 criteria, Cognisess none of them, and the closest of the 7 is FRIA Support, Cognisess 20 to Lever 32. The advantage Lever holds is spread out: Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Cognisess 25, Lever 52, 20% weight), yet it supplies only 29% of the weighted points Lever gains 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
Lever
Lever is an AI-powered applicant tracking system and recruiting CRM that centralizes sourcing, candidate relationship management, AI candidate matching (Talent Fit), and hiring analytics for high-growth employers.
§ The record
Cognisess is filed under Assessment AI, Lever 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 | Lever |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | GB | US |
| Founded | 2011 | 2012 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 29% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · Lever 52
5.4 weighted points to Lever
18% weight · 50% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · Lever 42
4.0 weighted points to Lever
15% weight · 63% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · Lever 58
2.4 weighted points to Lever
12% weight · 74% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · Lever 60
2.2 weighted points to Lever
15% weight · 84% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · Lever 32
1.8 weighted points to Lever
12% weight · 92% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · Lever 45
1.6 weighted points to Lever
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · Lever 58
1.4 weighted points to Lever
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -18.7 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 18.7 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -19 beside that -18.7.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus Lever.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | Lever | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 52 | -27 | -5.4 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 42 | -22 | -4.0 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 32 | -12 | -1.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -2.4 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 60 | -18 | -2.2 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 45 | -13 | -1.6 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 58 | -18 | -1.4 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 49 (F) | -19 | -18.7 |
§ 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 | Lever | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 | Sources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on a separate 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 | 2 | 0 | 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 | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 21 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 13 | 6 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Cognisess has 26 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 21 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; Lever has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Cognisess and Lever 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 Lever, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Lever 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