From Ghosted to Engaged: The Rise of Two-Way AI Chats | Prem Kumar, Humanly.io

In this episode of the Tesoro AI Podcast, Darius Gant sits down with Prem Kumar, co-founder of Humanly, to explore how true two-way AI conversations are reshaping the candidate experience. Prem shares how a personal brush with being “ghosted” as an applicant inspired him to build a platform that engages every candidate—applicants and sourced prospects alike—across chat, email, SMS, and voice, all while embedding compliance guardrails like real-time pay-transparency for each locale. You’ll learn how Humanly’s skill-based matching engine infers hidden competencies from past hires, plugs invisibly into your ATS and HRIS workflows, and even offers candidates a voice-activated agent for interview prep and career guidance—long before they ever speak with a human recruiter. Plus, discover the auditing processes Humanly employs to surface and mitigate bias in real time, ensuring a fair and transparent process for all.   If your company is looking to scale its AI initiatives, head over to Tesoro AI (www.tesoroai.com). We are experts in AI strategy, staff augmentation, and AI product development.   Founder Bio:   Prem Kumar is currently CEO and co-founder of Humanly.io, a venture backed generative AI platform that empowers hiring teams to be more effective and equitable in the job candidate conversations that should remain Human-driven, while automating the ones that shouldn't. Previously, Prem led the product management and design teams at TINYpulse, an employee engagement company that empowers organizations to build world-class cultures with real-time people data. Prior to TINYpulse, Prem spent 10 years at Microsoft working in a variety of product capacities, in areas such as HR Technology, New Ventures, Dynamics 365, and Office 365. Prem has been recognized as Geekwire's "Startup CEO of the year - 2023", a PSBJ 40 under 40 honoree, Forbes NEXT 1000 honoree (Forbes)  TAtech Top 100 leader (TAtech.org), Top 100 HR Influencer (HR Weekly) and to "The Most Inclusive HR Influencer List 2021" (social micole).   Time Stamps:   00:32 Prem’s Early Career & Pain Point 02:40 Humanly's Approach to Candidate Engagement 06:21 Multi-Channel AI Chat 09:04 Humanly's Candidate Pool and Outreach 12:04 Automating the Screening Process 15:52 AI's Role in Modern Recruitment 20:03 Challenges of Bias in AI Recruitment 24:02 Integrating AI with HR Systems 25:44 AI in Candidate Interviews 27:24 Analyzing Interview Data 31:03 Data Collection for AI Models 35:25 Future of AI-Powered Employees 39:59 Tools and Skills for AI Integration 41:42 Humanly's Future Plans   Resources   Follow Darius Gant LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/m-darius-gant-cpa-44650aa/ Company Website - www.tesoroai.com   Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4uDVNgsK3iNeu7yU4Inu2n   Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ae/podcast/the-darius-gant-show/id1527996104   Company website: https://humanly.io/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/humanlyhr/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/premskumar Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/humanlyhr/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HumanlyHR