The AI interview has moved from a quick screening call to a full technical round. On October 5, 2026, HackerRank made Chakra, its AI interviewer, generally available to customers. It hands candidates a real coding task, watches how they work with an AI assistant, and then asks them to explain their choices.

That matters to anyone who hires developers. HackerRank says Chakra already ran more than 500,000 interviews during about six months of testing. Snowflake, Snorkel and Capgemini were among the companies that tried it.

I'm Nitin Kumar, Lead Project Coordinator at Debugged Pro. We hire and manage developers for client projects across India and the USA, so I spend a lot of time thinking about how to judge real skill. I read TechCrunch's report and HackerRank's own product details. Here is what the tool does and what I think agencies should take from it.

Chakra is HackerRank's agentic AI interviewer for technical hiring. Image: HackerRank

What HackerRank's Chakra AI Interview Actually Does

HackerRank built its name on coding challenges. Those tests mostly checked whether a developer could reach the right answer. Chakra is built on a different idea: in the age of AI coding tools, the answer alone tells you very little.

CEO and co-founder Vivek Ravisankar put it simply to TechCrunch. "The previous modality of evaluation was evaluating the output," he said. "Now, because of AI, anybody can produce an artifact."

How a Chakra session works

A Chakra interview is meant to look like a day on the job, not a puzzle. Based on the TechCrunch report and the official Chakra product page, a session runs roughly like this:

The candidate gets a task tied to a real-world code repository, such as fixing reported bugs in an existing app.
They work in a live canvas that includes an AI coding assistant they are allowed to use.
Chakra watches the work and uses that context to ask follow-up questions.
It probes judgment, for example asking why they picked one approach or how a new constraint would change the fix.
The employer gets a report with a score for each skill area, strengths, gaps and evidence from the transcript and work.

The demo on HackerRank's site even asks candidates to write a plan with acceptance criteria and risks before they touch any code. That is a good sign. Planning is exactly what separates a careful engineer from someone who pastes whatever the AI suggests.

What the tool scores

Beyond correct answers, HackerRank wants to measure critical thinking, judgment and what it calls "AI fluency." That means how well a candidate frames a problem for an AI tool, judges its output, and steers it toward a solution.

Employers can turn a job description into a tailored interview with custom sections, questions and rubrics. Sample roles on the product page include AI Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, Customer Experience Engineer and AI Product Manager.

Three Hiring Rounds Become One AI Interview

The biggest practical change is speed. Ravisankar told TechCrunch that Chakra combines three steps into a single session:

A recruiter screen
A take-home assessment
A follow-up interview with an engineer

For an agency, those three rounds can take a week or more to schedule. Senior engineers lose hours to first-round calls with candidates who were never a fit. If one structured session can filter early, your team gets that time back for client work.

Old coding test vs. Chakra at a glance

Area	Traditional coding test	Chakra AI interview
Task	Set coding problems	Work in a real-world code repository
AI use	Usually not allowed	AI assistant built into the canvas
What is judged	Mostly whether the answer is correct	Answer plus judgment, critical thinking and AI fluency
Follow-up	Separate interview with an engineer	Questions asked during the same session
Final decision	Hiring team	Still the hiring team

Ravisankar also compared the shift inside HackerRank to Apple moving from the iPod to the iPhone. The old product still has value, he said, but "Chakra is going to be the headline."

Sample HackerRank Chakra AI interview report showing an overall score, skill scores, strengths, gaps and suspicious activity flags — A sample Chakra candidate report with skill scores, strengths, gaps and integrity flags. Image: HackerRank via TechCrunch

Does Allowing AI Make Cheating Worse?

You might expect cheating to rise when candidates get an AI assistant during the test. HackerRank says it found the opposite.

According to Ravisankar, suspicious-activity flags were 70% to 80% lower in Chakra interviews than in comparable traditional HackerRank assessments. The rate varied with factors such as geography and seniority. His reasoning is that when AI is allowed, there is less reason to secretly use outside tools that feed answers.

Chakra still watches for rule breaking. HackerRank says it flags unauthorized apps such as Cluely and help from an external device. The sample report above shows flags for tab switches, webcam analysis and leaving full-screen mode.

This lines up with what we see. Banning AI in a coding test now feels a bit like banning a calculator in an accounting job. The better test is whether the person can check the tool's work and explain it.

The AI Interview and Bias: What to Watch

Handing part of a hiring decision to software raises fair questions. Ravisankar says Chakra scores candidates but does not make the final call. That stays with humans.

He also argued that "AI is way less biased than humans, if you tune it properly," because it can apply the same rubric to every candidate. HackerRank says it tests Chakra so its scores match human experts and are not biased by race, ethnicity or gender. These are the company's own claims.

TechCrunch adds a sensible caution. Applying the same criteria every time does not make a system bias-free. Automated hiring tools can pick up or amplify bias from their data, models and scoring rules.

The rules already in force

Regulators are paying attention. Under New York City's Local Law 144, an employer or employment agency can't use an automated employment decision tool unless:

The tool had a bias audit within one year of use
A summary of that audit is publicly available
Candidates or employees get the required notices

The city's Department of Consumer and Worker Protection guidance on automated employment decision tools says that notice must go out 10 business days before the tool is used. Ravisankar told TechCrunch that hiring is a regulated area and that meeting such rules is part of what HackerRank had to build for.

If you hire in India, data rules matter too. Interview recordings, webcam analysis and transcripts are personal data. Talk to your legal advisor about consent and storage before you roll out any tool like this.

What This Means for Agencies in India and the USA

Agencies hire in a specific way. We often need a React developer or a QA engineer for a client project that starts in two weeks. Volume, speed and fit with the client's stack all matter at once.

Our recent look at the tech job market in 2026 and rising AI hiring showed how competitive developer roles have become. Tools like Chakra will spread because they promise to cut that time to hire. Here is how I would think about it.

1. Test for the job you actually need

The real lesson from Chakra is not about one vendor. It is that the best AI interview looks like real work. Even without the tool, you can give candidates a small task in a sample repo and let them use AI, then ask them to defend their choices.

2. Keep a human in the final round

Use AI to filter and to gather evidence. Keep the final decision, and the culture and client-fit talk, with your own leads. That matches how HackerRank says its own tool should be used.

3. Ask vendors hard questions

Before you sign with any AI hiring tool, ask:

Has it had an independent bias audit, and can we see the summary?
How are scores checked against human reviewers?
Where are recordings and transcripts stored, and for how long?
Can candidates request a human review of their result?

4. Tell candidates what to expect

Be upfront that an AI agent will run part of the interview and that AI help is allowed. Good candidates appreciate clear rules, and it keeps you in line with notice laws like New York City's.

5. Watch for passive "vibe coding"

HackerRank's sample report describes a candidate whose result looked fine but who could not explain the trade-offs and said they "trusted the AI." That is the exact risk on client projects. Train your interviewers to spot it, with or without an AI interviewer.

If you are building a team rather than hiring one by one, our guide on how to hire dedicated developers in India quickly walks through a faster, lower-risk path.

What We Still Don't Know

How Chakra is priced for smaller teams and agencies.
Whether independent audits will back HackerRank's claims on bias and accuracy.
How candidates outside the beta group will feel about being interviewed by an AI agent.
How well its scores predict actual job performance months after hiring.

For the full background, read TechCrunch's report on HackerRank's AI interviewer by Jagmeet Singh.

Key Takeaways

Chakra is now generally available after about six months in beta and more than 500,000 interviews.
The AI interview looks like real work: a code repo, an AI assistant and follow-up questions about choices.
Three rounds become one, merging the recruiter screen, take-home task and engineer interview.
Cheating flags fell 70% to 80% versus comparable HackerRank tests, according to the company.
Humans still make the hire, and laws like New York City's Local Law 144 require bias audits and notice.

Planning to scale your development team or rethink how you vet engineers? Our team offers free software development consulting to help you build a hiring and delivery process that fits your projects.

About the Author

Nitin Kumar is the Lead Project Coordinator at Debugged Pro. He works with development teams and clients across India and the USA to plan, staff and ship web, mobile and AI projects. He writes about practical AI adoption, hiring and delivery for agencies and growing businesses.