SYDNEY, March 30, 2026, 05:15 (AEDT)
Australian-listed Woolworths Group Ltd is facing fresh scrutiny over its use of artificial intelligence in job interviews, after more applicants in New Zealand said the system made faulty personality calls and screened them out before they reached a recruiter. The retailer said the process was designed to be “fair and accessible” and includes human review after the first automated assessment. 1
The flare-up matters because Woolworths hires at scale across Australia and New Zealand and has used the Sapia AI tool since 2020, according to the company. In a separate Sapia case study, the vendor said Woolworths handles about 1 million applications a year for 40,000 roles, showing why the grocer has leaned on automation to speed store hiring. 1
Steve Holt, 51, said he was rejected after six Woolworths applications and never got to speak to a person, calling the software an “AI bouncer”. Auckland mother Lucy Scott said feedback given to her 16-year-old son warned that his self-belief could alienate others, even though she described him as respectful, willing to work and used to long shifts. 1
Another applicant, Suzanne, a semi-retired former airline customer service worker, said the tool wrongly tagged her as introverted, resistant to change and too laid-back. Woolworths said more than 1 million applicants across Australia and New Zealand had used the screening system since launch, and that demographic data are anonymised and checked for signs of bias. 1
Woolworths has backed the technology before as a way to cope with volume hiring. In Sapia’s case study, Keri Foti, then Woolworths’ head of advisory and talent acquisition services, said the company liked the tool because it was “mobile” and “interactive”, while the vendor said some candidates could move from job ad to offer in under 24 hours. 2
That speed does not remove legal risk. Giuseppe Carabetta, an associate professor of workplace and business law at the University of Technology Sydney, said last year that AI recruitment is often about “faster screening” but can still reproduce old bias, and that most applicants have no direct right to demand a human interview; Lander & Rogers said this month employers remain responsible if a third-party AI system produces discriminatory outcomes. 3
But the complaints aired this week do not, on their own, establish systemic bias. Woolworths said it had checks and balances to monitor unfair outcomes and that most feedback on the system had been positive, while New Zealand’s Ministry of Social Development said it was not aware of specific complaints. 1
The scrutiny lands as Woolworths works to rebuild trust with shoppers. Reuters reported in February that the grocer posted stronger-than-expected first-half profit after price cuts helped lift sales, and earlier in March Woolworths’ AI assistant Olive drew criticism for odd, overly human replies, a reminder that automation can quickly become a brand problem when it misfires. 4
