As India’s technology hiring market slowly regains momentum, a new form of interview fraud is quietly spreading across the sector, where candidates are increasingly using artificial intelligence tools to clear virtual interviews.
Recruiters and hiring managers across the IT services and product ecosystem say candidates are now relying on real-time AI assistants during online interviews to generate polished responses, solve coding problems and even answer behavioural questions on the spot.
Some candidates keep a second screen or mobile phone just below the webcam frame, where tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini or specialised interview copilot software listen to the interviewer’s question and instantly suggest answers. Others use browser extensions and hidden desktop overlays that remain invisible during screen sharing but display live prompts.
For coding interviews, the misuse is even more direct. Candidates paste problem statements into generative AI tools or use code assistants to generate full solutions in seconds.
“It has become the new-age proxy interview,” said a senior software engineer at Infosys, who recently appeared for roles in Bengaluru’s product start-up ecosystem and requested anonymity. “For one round, I had ChatGPT open on my phone and Copilot on my laptop. The HR round was easy. The AI gave me structured answers for leadership and conflict questions almost instantly.”
A cloud architect working at Wipro said the pressure to keep up in a difficult market is pushing many candidates towards such shortcuts.
“People are not doing it because they are lazy. The competition is brutal. If everyone believes others are using AI, it becomes a survival hack,” the employee said. “In technical rounds, some people are literally feeding the question into an AI tool while pretending to think.”
He also said that the candidates often rehearse with AI-generated mock interviews before the actual call and then keep the same tool open during the live round.
“The interviewer asks a system design question, and within ten seconds, the AI gives you a framework of scalability, fault tolerance, caching, and database choice. You just speak around it,” he said.
In response, companies across the technology sector are now changing the way they hire in order to reduce the misuse of artificial intelligence during interviews.
Several firms have started moving away from fully virtual hiring rounds and are bringing candidates back for in-person discussions, especially for final technical and managerial interviews. A recent report by The Wall Street Journal said more companies are returning to face-to-face meetings as AI tools make it easier for candidates to receive live assistance during remote rounds.
Others are redesigning the interview itself. Instead of asking standard questions that can be easily answered by AI tools, recruiters are increasingly using live work simulations, timed coding exercises and practical problem-solving tasks that mirror real workplace situations. Companies such as Foxglove and BlueAlpha have begun using multi-day work trials to test how candidates actually perform on the job.