This week? I’ll admit it’s selfish. Because the reset I want to talk about isours.

In September, we’re launching the new Vouch. And it isn’t “just another ATS with AI bolted on.” We're building what a recruitment system ought to look like if you reimagined it from the ground up, AI-first. Your hiring assistant.

Bolt-on vs. native

I know what you're thinking: "AI-first? Isn't every tool adding AI now?"

But the thing they don't tell you about AI “features”: when they’re bolted on, they look flashy. A quick summary here, an auto-reply there, a chatbot in the corner. They demo well. But they rarely change how the system actually works.

AI-first is different. The “magic” doesn’t always flash on screen in a single feature. It runs deeper, into the structure, the workflows, the decisions, and you don’t notice it in a single moment. You feel it in thesmoothnessof everything:

• Job scoping that no longer drains 45 minutes from your engineers.
• Candidate flows that screen intelligently instead of flooding your inbox.
• Candidate evaluations that are structured, contextual, and consistent across roles.
• Data that’s remembered and re-used – not lost in silos.
• Communication that’s nudged, drafted, and aligned with your tone.
• Teams that stay in sync, without drowning in notifications.

Even before “chat” (yes, that’s coming), the assistant is there.

Quietly making the whole thing less painful, and ironically, maybe more human.

Not replacing, but assisting

We’re not building Vouch to autonomously replace people. Hiring is, and should remain, a deeply human process. No false promise of “just open this app and we’ll hire for you.”

What we’re building is a system that removes friction. It lets humans focus on judgment, relationships, and context – the parts no AI should remove.

But wedotry to emulate the very best recruiter within the product, too. Not to take your craft away, but to digitise more and more of theartof recruitment, alongside you.

Smooth > flashy

Being AI-native means it all feels like butter compared to other systems. Not saying it's all there yet, but it's surely getting closer! It means we can ship fast, align context across every step, and build guardrails instead of gimmicks.

We’ve laid the groundwork, don’t expect fireworks everywhere yet, but the foundation is solid and the magic is coming, step by step.

We’ve learned the hard way what doesn’t work in recruitment software. Now we’re showing what it looks like when you start fresh, through AI-first lenses.

So yes, this edition is selfish. But it’s also what The Hiring Reset has always been about: breaking old assumptions and asking,if we started over today, how would we build?

We think we’ve found an answer. But we are just getting started and want to build thiswithpeople like you. Reach out if you have thoughts, or join the waitlist!

— Håkon, CEO and Co-founder of Vouch