RecTalk at RecFest: AI, Application Floods & the Future of Talent Acquisition with Oleeo

RecTalk is live from RecFest UK 2026 at Knebworth Park, where Nitin Sharma sits down with Oleeo founder and CEO Charles Hipps, Police Scotland’s Lorna Allison and Sopra Steria’s Richard Burgess-Kelly to unpack one of the biggest challenges facing Talent Acquisition right now: how do you use AI to deal with a huge increase in applications without losing quality, fairness or the human element?The conversation follows the group’s session on AI in Talent Acquisition and explores the practical realities of AI adoption — from recruiters and hiring managers who are nervous about AI, to organisations dealing with application volumes that have exploded as candidates increasingly use AI to create and improve CVs and applications.The discussion covers AI-driven application screening, candidate authenticity, AI compliance and fairness, human-in-the-loop decision making, and how recruitment teams can use AI to reduce repetitive administration while spending more time on candidate engagement and strategic work.Lorna shares Police Scotland’s approach to starting small with AI, including the use of an AI chatbot to handle repetitive candidate enquiries and build organisational confidence. Richard discusses the realities of recruitment technology across government, police and defence, while Charles explains Oleeo’s approach to standalone AI tools, AI upskilling and helping organisations find quality candidates within increasingly large application volumes.A key theme throughout is that AI adoption is as much a people and change-management challenge as it is a technology challenge. The group also discusses why candidates should be given clear guidance on acceptable AI use, the importance of transparency and fairness, and why human judgement remains critical.WHO THIS EPISODE IS FORTalent Acquisition and recruitment leaders exploring AI, recruitment technology buyers, HR tech and RecTech professionals, recruiters dealing with rising application volumes, and anyone trying to understand how AI can improve recruitment without removing the human element.ABOUT OLEEOOleeo is the leader in human-centric AI-powered ATS & AI add-ons that supercharge your recruitment. Their intelligent, automated tools handle the heavy lifting – AI screening of candidates and skills assessment, eliminating bias, and engaging candidates 24/7 with conversational chatbots.Intelligent automation, human connection.https://www.oleeo.com/GUESTSCharles Hipps: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charleshipps/Lorna Allison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lorna-allison-82b69a23a/Richard Burgess-Kelly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardburgesskelly/HOST — Nitin Sharma: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nitin-rectools/Find out more about RecFest UK: https://recfest.com/uk/Discover recruitment tools and services: https://www.rectools.io/Listen to RecTalk on another platform: https://rectalk.co.uk/#RecTalk #RecFest #RecFestUK #Recruitment #TalentAcquisition #RecruitmentTech #RecTech #HRTech #AIRecruitment #ArtificialIntelligence #RecruitmentAI #TalentTech #CandidateExperience #RecruitmentTechnology #FutureOfRecruitment #Oleeo