A Paradox (Olivia) alternative that conducts the first-round interview

Olivia is a conversational assistant that sits at the top of the funnel. It answers candidate questions, collects applications through chat and text, runs knockout screening questions such as availability and work authorization, and then books the interview into a recruiter or hiring manager calendar. For hourly and high-volume hiring, where the main problem is getting a warm applicant booked before they lose interest, that is a genuinely strong product.

What it does not do is evaluate. Knockout questions filter on facts rather than judgment, so after Olivia has done its work you still have a queue of qualified-on-paper candidates and a human still has to run every first-round interview. That is the gap teams are usually describing when they search for a Paradox alternative.

Paradox does not publish pricing. It is sold through a demo and quote process, and reported deal sizes vary widely with hiring volume and modules, so any specific figure you find in a roundup is a third-party estimate rather than a vendor number. We do not republish those estimates, because we cannot verify them.

InterviewAgent.ai publishes its plans: 149 dollars a month for up to 100 interviews, 399 for up to 500, and 999 for up to 2,000, all listed on our pricing page. Roughly half of this category quotes only after a sales call, which is worth factoring into your evaluation timeline whichever tool you choose.

Yes, and for high-volume programs that is usually the better setup rather than a compromise. A scheduler and an interviewer solve different problems. Olivia keeps applicants engaged and converts them into booked slots; the interview agent then conducts the screen itself instead of consuming a recruiter hour per candidate.

The practical division is simple. Chatbot handles capture, questions and logistics. Interview agent handles the structured screen, the follow-ups, the rubric scoring and the ranked shortlist. Recruiters see only the shortlist and make every advance decision. Teams running that combination at scale usually land on the pattern described on our high volume hiring software page.

Both are subject to the same rules, because those rules land on the employer rather than the vendor. If a tool substantially assists a decision about who advances, NYC Local Law 144 requires an independent bias audit within the prior 12 months, a published summary and 10 business days of candidate notice. Chat-based knockout screening is not exempt from that just because it looks like a conversation.

The difference is what evidence you end up holding. A knockout filter records that a candidate did or did not meet a criterion. A structured scored interview records the sentence the candidate actually said, the rubric level it earned, and who made the decision afterward. When an auditor asks why someone was not advanced, the second one answers the question. Our AI hiring compliance page covers what each US rule requires.