§ The result
SmartRecruiters leads Fountain on all 7 criteria.
SmartRecruiters finishes 18 points clear of Fountain under rubric v1.0 — 62 (D) against 44 (F) — across the ATS-integrated and Screening cohorts. SmartRecruiters leads every one of the 7 criteria, Fountain none of them, and the closest of the 7 is Human Oversight Design, Fountain 58 to SmartRecruiters 62. Bias Audit Transparency is both the widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing — Fountain 30, SmartRecruiters 78 — and at an 18% weight it carries 47% of the weighted advantage SmartRecruiters holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Fountain
AI-powered high-volume hiring platform that automates sourcing, applicant screening (including a voice-based AI Recruiter), interview scheduling, and onboarding for frontline workforces.
Vendor profile
SmartRecruiters
SmartRecruiters is an enterprise applicant tracking system and talent acquisition suite whose AI layer (the Winston assistant plus SmartAssistant/Winston Match) screens, ranks, and matches candidates to requisitions to support recruiter decisions.
§ The record
Fountain is filed under Screening AI, SmartRecruiters under ATS-integrated AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Sourcing.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act and Illinois HB 3773.
| Record | Fountain | SmartRecruiters |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Enterprise |
| Headquarters | US | US |
| Founded | 2014 | 2010 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
18% weight · 47% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Fountain 30 · SmartRecruiters 78
8.6 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
20% weight · 69% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Fountain 50 · SmartRecruiters 70
4.0 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 82% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Fountain 30 · SmartRecruiters 45
2.3 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
15% weight · 87% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Fountain 55 · SmartRecruiters 62
1.1 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 93% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Fountain 40 · SmartRecruiters 48
1.0 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
8% weight · 97% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Fountain 52 · SmartRecruiters 63
0.9 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
12% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Fountain 58 · SmartRecruiters 62
0.5 weighted points to SmartRecruiters
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -18.3 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 18.3 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 -18.3.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Fountain minus SmartRecruiters.
| Category | Weight | Fountain | SmartRecruiters | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 50 | 70 | -20 | -4.0 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 30 | 78 | -48 | -8.6 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 30 | 45 | -15 | -2.3 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 55 | 62 | -7 | -1.1 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 58 | 62 | -4 | -0.5 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 40 | 48 | -8 | -1.0 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 52 | 63 | -11 | -0.9 |
| Total | 100% | 44 (F) | 62 (D) | -18 | -18.3 |
§ 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 | Fountain | SmartRecruiters | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 2 | 1 | — | 1 | 0 | Audit reportSources on a separate domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 3 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 1 | 1 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 2 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 14 | 6 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 11 | 2 | Audit reportSources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Fountain has 20 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 14 with a source URL, 6 documented absences; SmartRecruiters has 13 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 11 with a source URL, 2 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for SmartRecruiters sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 33 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 20 for Fountain, across 2 distinct source domains, and 13 for SmartRecruiters, across 2 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Fountain last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- SmartRecruiters 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