§ The result
Sova Assessment leads Cognisess on all 7 criteria.
The Assessment cohort pairing of Sova Assessment and Cognisess comes out 48 to 30 under rubric v1.0, an 18-point lead for Sova Assessment. Cognisess leads none of the 7 criteria, and Sova Assessment is ahead on 3 of them by 20 raw points or more, Article 11 Technical Documentation among them. The advantage Sova Assessment holds is spread out: Article 11 Technical Documentation is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing (Cognisess 25, Sova Assessment 55, 20% weight), yet it supplies only 33% of the weighted points Sova Assessment 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
Sova Assessment
Sova Assessment is a UK-based enterprise talent assessment platform combining personality questionnaires, cognitive and ability tests, situational judgement, video interviews, virtual assessment centres and AI-led role simulations into a single occupational-psychology-validated candidate scoring workflow.
§ The record
Cognisess and Sova Assessment 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 | Sova Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | High |
| Headquarters | GB | GB |
| Founded | 2011 | 2015 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 33% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · Sova Assessment 55
6.0 weighted points to Sova Assessment
18% weight · 51% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · Sova Assessment 38
3.2 weighted points to Sova Assessment
15% weight · 68% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · Sova Assessment 40
3.0 weighted points to Sova Assessment
8% weight · 78% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · Sova Assessment 62
1.8 weighted points to Sova Assessment
12% weight · 86% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · Sova Assessment 55
1.6 weighted points to Sova Assessment
15% weight · 95% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Cognisess 42 · Sova Assessment 52
1.5 weighted points to Sova Assessment
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · Sova Assessment 40
1.0 weighted points to Sova Assessment
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -18.0 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 18.0 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -18 beside that -18.0.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus Sova Assessment.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | Sova Assessment | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 55 | -30 | -6.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 38 | -18 | -3.2 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 40 | -20 | -3.0 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 52 | -10 | -1.5 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 55 | -13 | -1.6 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 40 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 62 | -22 | -1.8 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 48 (F) | -18 | -18.0 |
§ 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 | Sova Assessment | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 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 domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 4 | 2 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 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 | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 4 | 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 | 6 | 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 | 28 | 8 | 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; Sova Assessment has 34 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 28 with a source URL, 8 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Cognisess and Sova Assessment sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 60 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 34 for Sova Assessment, across 3 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Sova Assessment last reviewed
- August 2, 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