§ The result
Paycor leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
Paycor, filed under ATS-integrated, comes out 10 points above Cognisess, filed under Assessment: 40 against 30 under rubric v1.0. Paycor takes all 7 criteria from Cognisess without a 20-point raw gap on any of them; the closest is Bias Audit Transparency, Cognisess 20 to Paycor 25. Even Article 11 Technical Documentation, the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Cognisess 25, Paycor 40, 20% weight), is only 31% of the weighted advantage Paycor 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
Paycor
Paycor, a Paychex company, sells a mid-market HR and payroll suite whose recruiting tools include the Paycor Recruiting ATS, Paycor Smart Sourcing (formerly Talenya), which uses AI to build a prioritized list of passive and active candidates for each role and automate outreach, and a WISE assistant that phone-screens candidates and scores their answers.
§ The record
Cognisess is filed under Assessment AI, Paycor 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 | Paycor |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | GB | US |
| Founded | 2011 | 1990 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 31% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · Paycor 40
3.0 weighted points to Paycor
12% weight · 47% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · Paycor 55
1.6 weighted points to Paycor
15% weight · 60% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · Paycor 50
1.2 weighted points to Paycor
8% weight · 72% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · Paycor 55
1.2 weighted points to Paycor
15% weight · 83% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · Paycor 27
1.1 weighted points to Paycor
18% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · Paycor 25
0.9 weighted points to Paycor
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · Paycor 38
0.7 weighted points to Paycor
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -9.6 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 9.6 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -10 beside that -9.6.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus Paycor.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | Paycor | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 40 | -15 | -3.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 25 | -5 | -0.9 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 27 | -7 | -1.1 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 50 | -8 | -1.2 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -1.6 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 38 | -6 | -0.7 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 55 | -15 | -1.2 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 40 (F) | -10 | -9.6 |
§ 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 | Paycor | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | — |
| 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 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 5 | 0 | Sources on a separate domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 3 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 21 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain | 24 | 6 | Audit reportSources 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; Paycor has 30 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 24 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Cognisess and Paycor sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 56 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 30 for Paycor, across 6 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Paycor 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