Software engineers are expected to use AI every day at work. So why are candidates accusing of using AI to cheat tech interviews in first place? As the debate over AI interview cheating ignites, employers are finding that the real problem may be outdated hiring processes.
“I’m going to cheat on my Amazon interview using AI,” wrote a giddy (we assume) user on TeamBlind. “The coding interview process is a joke,” he wrote. “AI tools make these interviews easy, and no one can really catch you,” the self-aware user added “I see the cheaters getting backlash from the media, but when everyone’s using AI, why can’t you use it?”
Source: TeamBlind
The anonymous coder didn’t seem ashamed. If anything, the post carried a hint of defiance. AI, the coder argued, had made technical interviews easy to beat, and if companies wanted honest hires, they should stop relying on interview formats that reward memorization over real coding.
“Its not only acceptable to cheat with AI, it is your duty,” wrote a developer at Microsoft. “The only people that have a problem with it are LC monkeys that wasted countless hours of their life memorizing every possible question, and don’t want that time to be a complete waste.”
Candidates don’t call it ‘cheating’
A quick scroll through Reddit, and you’ll find job seekers asking whether AI interview assistants actually work during behavioral interviews. On LinkedIn, hiring managers are firing back with their own warning: they know candidates are reading AI-generated responses, and they aren’t amused.
“It’s quite easy to tell if you’re using AI,” responded a hiring manager at Amazon in comment on TeamBlind. “It’s not a disqualifier in my mind because a. I can’t be 100% sure and b. Because we encourage engineers to use AI effectively day to day. That said, if you can’t explain what each line of the code is doing quickly, you’re not getting hired; AI or not.”
Source: TeamBlind
The debate has quietly become one of the biggest fault lines in hiring. Using AI to cheat tech interviews is now openly discussed on private Discord servers. Last year we witnessed the rise of candidates asking for ways to cheat with AI during interviews. This year, a growing number of people are recommending best AI for cheating during interviews. In some corners of the internet, such practices are nearly revered.
We stand in the second half of 2026 where the debate has shift from whether AI interview cheating exists to what employers can do before candidates own the hiring process.
Who wins when candidates use AI to cheat interviews
Candidates don’t view using AI to cheat interviews as unethical. For most, it’s an easy adaption.
Come to think about it, their argument seems pretty reasonable. Software engineers use GitHub Copilot, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other AI tools every day at work. Development should be increasingly collaborative with humans and machines. So why should interviews ban AI tools that engineers are expected to use once they’re hired?
This sentiment is echoed across Canva, where the company’s engineering team changed its technical interviews to require candidates to use AI.
“At Canva, we believe our hiring process should evolve alongside the tools and practices our engineers use every day,” wrote Simon Newton, the Head of Platforms at Canva in a blog post encouraging the use of AI in interviews.
“Rather than fighting this reality and trying to police AI usage (which is increasingly difficult!), we made the decision to embrace transparency and work with this new reality,” he wrote. “We want to see how well candidates collaborate with AI to solve problems. This approach gives us a clearer signal about how they’ll actually perform when they join our team.”
Recruiters can easily sniff Mr. Pinocchio
Unsurprisingly, hiring managers see the situation very differently.
In one widely shared LinkedIn post, engineering leader Sripathi Jagannathan wrote, “If you use AI to cheat during a video interview with me, you’re not getting the job.”
Source: LinkedIn
Jagannathan wasn’t objecting AI itself, but he argued that interviews are supposed to evaluate candidates rather than their prompt engineering skills.
A lot of recruiters say the giveaways of using AI during interviews to cheat aren’t always technical.
The dead giveaway isn’t always a wandering gaze or an unusually long pause. Recruiters say the real red flag is the gap between performance and understanding. A candidate can feign intellectual ownership by reading words from a side-screen, but quickly falter when asked the most human question in the virtual room: Why? Or Defend your assumptions or Walk me through your thinking.
Using AI to cheat tech interviews seems easy, but it’s not when candidates are asked to defend their answers by showing genuine expertise over the subject matter.
A hiring manager based out of California recalled a candidate whose responses sounded oddly rehearsed. “Every answer began with “First…Second…Third” as though it were being read from a generated outline,” she told The HR Digest. “The team ultimately decided not to move forward with the candidate.”
Of course, none of these behaviors prove someone chose to cheat with AI during interviews. Some candidates naturally structure their responses that way. Others may simply be nervous resulting in a ton of shifting glances here and there. That’s precisely what makes deception so difficult to spot in interviews.
Every new AI detection tool inspires a better AI cheating assistant
Companies aren’t happy about candidates using AI to cheat tech interviews.
Amazon has reportedly instructed that candidates may be disqualified if they’re found using generative AI during interviews. Recruiters have also received guidance on spotting signs of AI assistance in interviews.
According to the Financial Times, companies like EY allow AI for preparation but ban it during interviews. While L’Oreal is now emphasizing more on face-to-face interviews because AI-generated interview answers often sound too polished but reveal little about the candidate’s thinking process and judgment.
HackerRank, a hiring platform has found a spot in the middle ground. The platform argues that employers should clearly define acceptable AI use and evaluate candidates using multiple integrity signals such as tab switching, copy paste activity and other anomalies over superficial behaviors alone.
Ironically, startups continue to build tools designed to help candidates cheat with AI in interviews.
One could call this the most unique arms race of the decade. Every new detection technique simply inspires a more sophisticated AI cheating tool.
But the giveaway from this problem is clear. We’re somewhere between an outdated interview process and technology that is evolving far swifter than hiring practices.
Subscribe to The HR Digest and join our inner circle of HR leaders who stay ahead of the curve.
