§ The result
SHL leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
The Assessment cohort pairing of SHL and Cognisess comes out 51 to 30 under rubric v1.0, a 21-point lead for SHL. SHL 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. Even Article 11 Technical Documentation, the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Cognisess 25, SHL 60, 20% weight), is only 34% of the weighted advantage SHL 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
SHL
SHL is a global talent-assessment provider offering AI-scored cognitive ability, personality, behavioral, situational-judgement, coding, and video-interview assessments that score, rank, and recommend candidates for hiring and development decisions.
§ The record
Cognisess and SHL are both filed under Assessment AI. They also share 2 secondary categories: Video interview and Screening.
Both are in scope of NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, EU AI Act, Colorado AI Act and Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Cognisess | SHL |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | GB | GB |
| Founded | 2011 | 1977 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 34% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · SHL 60
7.0 weighted points to SHL
18% weight · 60% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · SHL 50
5.4 weighted points to SHL
15% weight · 71% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · SHL 58
2.4 weighted points to SHL
12% weight · 80% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · SHL 58
1.9 weighted points to SHL
8% weight · 88% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · SHL 60
1.6 weighted points to SHL
15% weight · 95% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · SHL 30
1.5 weighted points to SHL
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · SHL 40
1.0 weighted points to SHL
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -20.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 20.8 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -21 beside that -20.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus SHL.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | SHL | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 60 | -35 | -7.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 50 | -30 | -5.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 30 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -2.4 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -1.9 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 40 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 60 | -20 | -1.6 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 51 (F) | -21 | -20.8 |
§ 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 | SHL | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | Sources 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 | 3 | 0 | 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 | 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 | 15 | 4 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
Cognisess has 26 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 21 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; SHL has 19 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 15 with a source URL, 4 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 SHL, across 1 distinct source domain.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- SHL 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