§ The result
Paycom leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
Paycom finishes 20 points clear of Cognisess under rubric v1.0 — 50 against 30 — across the ATS-integrated and Assessment cohorts. Paycom leads every one of the 7 criteria and 3 of them by 20 raw points or more, Article 11 Technical Documentation among them; Cognisess leads none. One criterion, Article 11 Technical Documentation, is both the widest raw gap (Cognisess 25, Paycom 68) and the heaviest weighted swing, and at 20% weight it makes up 43% of the weighted advantage Paycom holds 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
Paycom
Paycom is a single-database human capital management and payroll platform whose applicant tracking system automates recruiting with resume parsing, keyword/knockout candidate filtering, automated correspondence, generative job-description writing, and a command-driven AI data-query engine (IWant).
§ The record
Cognisess is filed under Assessment AI, Paycom 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 | Paycom |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | GB | US |
| Founded | 2011 | 1998 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 43% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · Paycom 68
8.6 weighted points to Paycom
18% weight · 59% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · Paycom 38
3.2 weighted points to Paycom
15% weight · 73% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · Paycom 62
3.0 weighted points to Paycom
8% weight · 81% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · Paycom 60
1.6 weighted points to Paycom
12% weight · 89% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · Paycom 55
1.6 weighted points to Paycom
15% weight · 96% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · Paycom 30
1.5 weighted points to Paycom
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · Paycom 38
0.7 weighted points to Paycom
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -20.2 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 20.2 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -20 beside that -20.2.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus Paycom.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | Paycom | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 68 | -43 | -8.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 38 | -18 | -3.2 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 30 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 62 | -20 | -3.0 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -1.6 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 38 | -6 | -0.7 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 60 | -20 | -1.6 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 50 (F) | -20 | -20.2 |
§ 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 | Paycom | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | 2 | 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 | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 21 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 13 | 7 | 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; Paycom has 20 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 13 with a source URL, 7 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 46 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 20 for Paycom, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Paycom 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