Do you consent to AI-assisted interview transcription?

The question appears in interview invites and at the start of calls because the employer's side is running an AI tool: a meeting platform's built-in notetaker, a recruiting platform's transcription feature, or a third-party assistant joining the call. Consenting means that tool may convert everything said in the conversation into a stored text transcript, and often a summary, for the hiring team to review.

Three details are worth reading for in the prompt itself:

• The vendor: the prompt usually names which tool transcribes the call, which tells you where the data lives.
• The scope: some tools transcribe only; others also record audio or video alongside the transcript.
• The retention: a few prompts state how long transcripts are kept; most do not, which is a fair question for the recruiter.

The prompt covers the employer's tooling only. It says nothing about software running locally on your own machine, a distinction that matters later on this page. Related privacy questions are collected in the detectability and privacy hub.

It feels risky to refuse anything during a hiring process, and you may worry a no will quietly end your candidacy. This section walks through what each answer actually changes so you can choose deliberately. The short version: yes is usually harmless, and a reasonable employer treats no as an accommodation request, not a rejection.

If you consent: the interview proceeds normally and your words are stored verbatim. Assume anything you say can be quoted in hiring discussions, and that filler, rambling, and off-hand remarks survive in text form long after the call.

If you decline: most platforms let the meeting continue without transcription, and many recruiters will simply take notes by hand. Some companies route you to an alternative process instead.

Consider a concrete case. A product manager interviewing with a logistics startup receives a consent form naming the transcription vendor. She consents, but first asks the recruiter who reads the transcript and how long it is kept; the recruiter checks and answers both within a day. The exchange costs her nothing and tells her the company takes the question seriously.

Consent prompts exist largely because the law demands them. In many jurisdictions, recording or transcribing a conversation requires the participants' consent, and several privacy regimes give candidates rights over hiring data after the fact: the right to know what was collected, to request a copy, and to request deletion.

You do not need to cite statutes to use those rights. Three plain questions to the recruiter cover the ground:

• Who reviews the transcript, a human reading it in full or an AI producing scores and summaries?
• How long is it retained, and is it deleted when the role closes?
• Can I request a copy or deletion afterward?

A recruiter who cannot answer any of them is telling you something about the company's data practices. Candidate-side guides to related questions live in the answer library.

The consent prompt also matters in the other direction. SubcueAI is an AI interview assistant that runs as a native desktop app on macOS and Windows, with dual audio capture and a floating local overlay; it joins nothing, so no bot appears in the participant list and no browser plugin is installed. The employer's consent prompt is about their tooling, not about software on your machine.

The honest caveat: once you consent to transcription, every word of the conversation is stored and reviewable, and if the session is also recorded, the footage can be replayed and inspected. Recorded and proctored sessions are out of scope for any live assistant, SubcueAI included, and a transcribed call deserves extra care: speak naturally, and never read a suggestion verbatim, because scripted phrasing is exactly the kind of pattern that stands out in a stored transcript.

How SubcueAI handles your own data, including what is stored and where, is documented on the security page.