§ The result
4 points separate Zappyhire and Cognisess.
Zappyhire holds a 4-point edge over Cognisess under rubric v1.0, 34 to 30, across the Screening and Assessment cohorts. The 7 criteria split 5 to 1 in favour of Zappyhire, with 1 level: Zappyhire is ahead on Bias Audit Transparency and Cognisess on Post-Market Monitoring. Bias Audit Transparency is the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing at once (Cognisess 20, Zappyhire 28, 18% weight), but it accounts for only 32% of the weighted advantage Zappyhire holds across the 5 criteria on that side of the table.
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
Zappyhire
Zappyhire is an AI-powered recruitment automation platform that screens and ranks candidates through resume parsing, a recruiting chatbot, AI assessments, and robotic video interviews, layered on an applicant tracking system.
§ The record
Cognisess is filed under Assessment AI, Zappyhire under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Video interview.
Both are in scope of NYC LL 144, Illinois HB 3773, EU AI Act, Colorado AI Act and Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Cognisess | Zappyhire |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Mid | Mid |
| Headquarters | GB | IN |
| Founded | 2011 | 2018 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 29% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Cognisess 20 · Zappyhire 28
1.4 weighted points to Zappyhire
20% weight · 49% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Cognisess 25 · Zappyhire 30
1.0 weighted points to Zappyhire
12% weight · 68% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Cognisess 42 · Zappyhire 50
1.0 weighted points to Zappyhire
15% weight · 83% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Cognisess 20 · Zappyhire 25
0.8 weighted points to Zappyhire
12% weight · 92% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Cognisess 32 · Zappyhire 28
0.5 weighted points to Cognisess
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Cognisess 40 · Zappyhire 45
0.4 weighted points to Zappyhire
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 6 figures above sum to -4.1 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 5.0 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -4 beside that -4.1.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Cognisess minus Zappyhire.
| Category | Weight | Cognisess | Zappyhire | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 25 | 30 | -5 | -1.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 20 | 28 | -8 | -1.4 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 25 | -5 | -0.8 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 42 | 42 | - | - |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 50 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 32 | 28 | +4 | +0.5 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 45 | -5 | -0.4 |
| Total | 100% | 30 (F) | 34 (F) | -4 | -4.1 |
§ 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 | Zappyhire | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 2 | 1 | Audit reportSources on a separate 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 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 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 | 12 | 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; Zappyhire has 18 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 12 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Cognisess and Zappyhire sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 44 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 26 for Cognisess, across 5 distinct source domains, and 18 for Zappyhire, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Cognisess last reviewed
- September 25, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Zappyhire 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