UAE-Founded Onyx Launches AI Recruiter That Interviews Candidates Before Shortlisting
The UAE-built platform uses multilingual conversational AI to interview candidates, helping employers hire faster while ensuring every qualified applicant has the opportunity to be heard.
Onyx
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Onyx, a UAE-founded conversational AI recruitment platform, has launched globally with an Arabic-capable AI recruiter that conducts candidate interviews before generating recommendation-based shortlists.
The interviews are tailored to the position and candidate, with questions adapting in real time based on the job requirements, the candidate’s CV and their responses. After the interview, candidates are categorized as Strong, Recommended, or Conditional, allowing hiring teams to assess applicants based on their responses rather than relying solely on CV screening, keyword matching, or static questionnaires.
“Traditional recruitment often means qualified candidates never get the opportunity to speak with a recruiter simply because hiring teams don’t have enough time,” said Aws Ismail, co-founder and CEO of Onyx. “We built Onyx because recruitment was overdue for a rethink. Candidates deserve an interview that actually listens and adapts to them, while hiring teams deserve high-quality shortlists they can trust fast. What has surprised us most is how positively candidates respond, many tell us the experience feels more natural and less judgmental than a traditional screening call.”
According to the company, the platform aims to address the challenge of screening large numbers of applicants when recruiters have limited time to speak with each candidate. Onyx can interview multiple candidates simultaneously, allowing hiring teams to review larger talent pools while providing candidates with a standardized first-round screening process.
Onyx can operate as a standalone recruitment platform or alongside existing applicant tracking systems.
The platform is available in English, Arabic, Spanish, French, Hindi, Urdu and Mandarin, among other languages, and supports organizations across sectors including logistics, retail, hospitality, professional services, and recruitment.
Since its founding in August 2025, Onyx has been used by organizations in the Middle East, the U.S., the U.K., Europe and Australia. Its early customers include a logistics company that filled 11 roles through the platform, a creative agency that made six hires in two months without an in-house recruitment function, and a recruitment firm that reported a 30% increase in consultant productivity.
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Onyx, a UAE-founded conversational AI recruitment platform, has launched globally with an Arabic-capable AI recruiter that conducts candidate interviews before generating recommendation-based shortlists.
The interviews are tailored to the position and candidate, with questions adapting in real time based on the job requirements, the candidate’s CV and their responses. After the interview, candidates are categorized as Strong, Recommended, or Conditional, allowing hiring teams to assess applicants based on their responses rather than relying solely on CV screening, keyword matching, or static questionnaires.
“Traditional recruitment often means qualified candidates never get the opportunity to speak with a recruiter simply because hiring teams don’t have enough time,” said Aws Ismail, co-founder and CEO of Onyx. “We built Onyx because recruitment was overdue for a rethink. Candidates deserve an interview that actually listens and adapts to them, while hiring teams deserve high-quality shortlists they can trust fast. What has surprised us most is how positively candidates respond, many tell us the experience feels more natural and less judgmental than a traditional screening call.”
Entrepreneur Middle East Staff
Entrepreneur Staff
