§ The result
Tengai leads Mercor on all 7 criteria.
Under rubric v1.0, Tengai opens a 19-point lead on Mercor, 42 to 23, with both scored in the Screening cohort. Mercor leads none of the 7 criteria, and Tengai is ahead on 3 of them by 20 raw points or more, Article 11 Technical Documentation among them. The widest raw gap and the heaviest weighted swing fall on different criteria: Data Governance Disclosure (Mercor 22, Tengai 50) and Article 11 Technical Documentation at 20% (Mercor 22, Tengai 45), the second being 24% of the weighted advantage Tengai holds across the 7 criteria on that side of the table.
Vendor profile
Mercor
Mercor is an AI talent platform that runs automated 20-minute AI video interviews and semantic resume/profile matching to vet, score, and place candidates and expert contractors, and offers an enterprise applicant-screening product that scores employers' applicant pools against role rubrics with pass/fail recommendations.
Vendor profile
Tengai
Tengai runs structured screening interviews through a browser-based AI avatar and combines candidates' yes/no qualification answers, a Five-Factor-based personality score and recruiter ratings of open answers into an automatically ranked shortlist.
§ The record
Mercor and Tengai are both filed under Screening AI. They also share 1 secondary category: Video interview.
Both are in scope of EU AI Act, NYC LL 144, Colorado AI Act, Illinois HB 3773 and Mobley v. Workday.
| Record | Mercor | Tengai |
|---|---|---|
| Price tier | Enterprise | Mid |
| Headquarters | US | SE |
| Founded | 2023 | 2019 |
§ What decides it
The criteria that move the gap, heaviest swing first.
20% weight · 24% of the movement so far
Article 11 Technical Documentation
Mercor 22 · Tengai 45
4.6 weighted points to Tengai
15% weight · 47% of the movement so far
Data Governance Disclosure
Mercor 22 · Tengai 50
4.2 weighted points to Tengai
18% weight · 69% of the movement so far
Bias Audit Transparency
Mercor 10 · Tengai 33
4.1 weighted points to Tengai
12% weight · 79% of the movement so far
Human Oversight Design
Mercor 42 · Tengai 58
1.9 weighted points to Tengai
12% weight · 87% of the movement so far
Post-Market Monitoring
Mercor 20 · Tengai 33
1.6 weighted points to Tengai
15% weight · 94% of the movement so far
FRIA Support
Mercor 20 · Tengai 28
1.2 weighted points to Tengai
8% weight · 100% of the movement so far
Customer Documentation
Mercor 40 · Tengai 55
1.2 weighted points to Tengai
Weighted delta is the raw difference times the criterion weight, so the 7 figures above sum to -18.8 — the difference between the two totals before either is rounded. Shares are of 18.8 points of movement counted without direction. The table below rounds each side to a whole number first, so its Δ raw total reads -19 beside that -18.8.
§ Category-by-category
Raw score per criterion, with weighted delta.
Δ is Mercor minus Tengai.
| Category | Weight | Mercor | Tengai | Δ raw | Δ weighted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 22 | 45 | -23 | -4.6 |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 10 | 33 | -23 | -4.1 |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 20 | 28 | -8 | -1.2 |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 22 | 50 | -28 | -4.2 |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 42 | 58 | -16 | -1.9 |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 20 | 33 | -13 | -1.6 |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 40 | 55 | -15 | -1.2 |
| Total | 100% | 23 (F) | 42 (F) | -19 | -18.8 |
§ 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 | Mercor | Tengai | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | Cited | Absences | Audit / hosting | ||
| Article 11 Technical Documentation | 20% | 1 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 7 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Bias Audit Transparency | 18% | 1 | 1 | — | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| FRIA Support | 15% | 1 | 2 | — | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Data Governance Disclosure | 15% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
| Human Oversight Design | 12% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 6 | 0 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Post-Market Monitoring | 12% | 1 | 1 | — | 4 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| Customer Documentation | 8% | 2 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 5 | 1 | Sources on the vendor's own domain |
| All criteria | 100% | 10 | 8 | Sources on the vendor's own domain | 37 | 5 | Sources on the vendor's own domainSources on a separate domain |
Mercor has 16 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 10 with a source URL, 8 documented absences; Tengai has 42 evidence rows across 7 of 7 criteria — 37 with a source URL, 5 documented absences; some documentation or audit rows for Tengai sit on a domain separate from the vendor's own site.
Provenance
The scores above are documented by 58 evidence rows on file for these two vendors: 16 for Mercor, across 4 distinct source domains, and 42 for Tengai, across 4 distinct source domains.
- Rubric
- v1.0
- Mercor last reviewed
- June 7, 2026 · HireAIScore editorial team
- Tengai 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