Recruiting Technology in 2025: The Great Consolidation and the Rise of the AI Stack
The Recruiting Tech Roll-Up: Who’s Left Standing in 2025?
I am just back from the Australasian Talent Conference (ATC) in Melbourne. It is always interesting to speak with sponsors and attendees to learn about the innovations and changes underway. Every year, new players emerge, or older ones are acquired. But this past year has been wild with change. The recruiting technology landscape is in an unprecedented phase of accelerated consolidation and technological divergence.
To ease my own confusion about which vendors have changed ownership or been acquired and to speculate a bit about the future, I have put together this article.
At one end, the enterprise giants of SAP, Workday, Oracle, and Cornerstone are acquiring AI-native startups to embed automation and skills intelligence across the talent lifecycle. At the other, a wave of smaller, AI-first competitors are reshaping everything from sourcing and assessment to engagement.
In between, some mid-tier independents are redefining their roles as connectors between the suites and the next generation of AI agents.
The result is a barbell market: massive integrated suites on one side, agile AI innovators on the other, and a shrinking middle.
The Consolidation Phase Accelerates
Many large vendors are fixing holes in their offerings without spending time that they don’t have on developing internal solutions. Instead, they are acquiring what they need.
Workday’s acquisitions of HiredScore in 2024 and Paradox in 2025 weren’t just about product enhancements; they were part of a strategy to meet users’ requests and strengthen user adoption.
SAP closed its purchase of SmartRecruiters in September 2025, instantly transforming SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting into a much-needed modern, AI-first platform.
Cornerstone absorbed SkyHive’s skills-intelligence capabilities in May 2024, while iCIMS bought Apli in September 2025 to scale automation for frontline hiring.
These moves underline the fact that the major suites are no longer building every capability themselves. Instead, they are buying innovation at the edge and folding mature startups into the core stack.
Where the Key Players Fit
SAP + SmartRecruiters: suite meets startup
SAP is integrating SmartRecruiters’ AI-assisted job writing, candidate scoring, and open APIs into SuccessFactors Recruiting, effectively replacing its older module.
The acquisition gives SAP a modern talent-acquisition engine, new features, and access to SmartRecruiters’ global mid-enterprise client base. Next acquisition? Perhaps a dedicated sourcing tool.
Workday + HiredScore + Paradox: conversational AI becomes infrastructure
Workday’s purchase of Paradox positions chat-based apply, screening, and scheduling as native Workday capabilities. Paradox’s strength in conversational workflows focuses on high-volume hiring sectors such as retail, hospitality, and healthcare. Combined with HiredScore’s matching algorithms, Workday now offers a conversational workflow that will scale to its 11,000+ clients. Workday is missing only a powerful sourcing engine.
Cornerstone + SkyHive: a skills-centric future powered by labor market data
For Cornerstone, the SkyHive acquisition brings predictive labor market intelligence and automated job architecture management. SkyHive’s external labor market data feeds into Cornerstone’s Galaxy platform, enabling a comprehensive skills strategy for internal mobility and career pathing.
iCIMS + Apli: automating frontline hiring at scale
iCIMS acquired Apli’s conversational AI technology to offer multichannel candidate engagement via text, WhatsApp, and web chat which accelerates time-to-hire for high-volume positions while improving candidate quality and experience.
Eightfold: the independent AI powerhouse
While other players consolidated, Eightfold remains independent and continues to grow as a standalone AI talent intelligence platform. Eightfold offers AI-driven recruitment, talent management, and workforce planning capabilities that integrate with multiple HCM systems, including Workday, Oracle, and SAP.
The Private Equity Play: PageUp and HireVue
Not all consolidation leads to absorption into HCM suites. Private equity firms are betting on standalone platforms that can serve multiple ecosystems:
PageUp: Private Equity-backed global expansion
EQT acquired PageUp from Battery Ventures in October 2024, positioning it for international expansion and AI innovation. PageUp launched advanced AI features in August 2025, including AI chatbots, candidate summarization, and Smart Send Assist. The platform maintains independence while serving enterprise, university, and public sector clients globally.
Following acquisitions of Clinch (2019), PathMotion (2021), and eArcu (2021), PageUp unified all brands under a single brand in 2025, strengthening its position as a complete talent acquisition solution.
HireVue: the assessment and video interviewing leader
Owned by The Carlyle Group since 2019, HireVue remains the enterprise standard for AI-powered video interviewing and assessments. The company acquired Modern Hire in May 2023, solidifying its position in ethical AI hiring solutions.
HireVue supports video interviews in over 40 languages. The platform’s comprehensive assessment capabilities and FedRAMP authorization make it particularly attractive for large enterprises and government agencies.
The Strategic Impact
The market seems to be crystallizing into distinct tiers:
Tier 1: Integrated HCM Suites
Workday (with HiredScore + Paradox)
SAP SuccessFactors (with SmartRecruiters)
Oracle (building internally)
Cornerstone (with SkyHive)
Tier 2: Independent Platforms
Eightfold (AI talent intelligence)
PageUp (PE-backed, global expansion)
HireVue (Carlyle-owned, assessment leader)
Greenhouse, Lever, SmartRecruiters (pre-acquisition)
Tier 3: Specialized AI Innovators
Phenom (talent experience)
Beamery (CRM-first)
SeekOut (sourcing intelligence)
MakiPeople (next-gen conversational)
What This Means for Buyers
For enterprise buyers, the consolidation creates both opportunities and challenges:
Opportunities:
Fewer vendors to manage
Better integration between recruiting and core HR
AI capabilities are now native to major platforms
Simplified compliance and security
Challenges:
Less negotiating leverage
Potential for vendor lock-in
Innovation may slow post-acquisition
Migration complexity for existing customers
The Future: A Next-Generation Recruiting Core
The strategic impact is clear: a next-generation recruiting core inside the major HCM suites, with AI capabilities that were previously only available through point solutions now embedded directly into enterprise platforms.
For mid-market companies, independent platforms like PageUp and HireVue offer sophisticated capabilities without full HCM suite adoption. For enterprises already committed to SAP or Workday, the recent acquisitions mean their recruiting capabilities will finally match the sophistication of standalone best-of-breed solutions.
Many point solutions are potential acquisition targets over the next year or two. A small sample includes HireEz, Scotty.ai, BrightHire, and Humanly.ai, but there are many more.
The consolidation phase is far from over. Oracle has not made any major acquisitions, and players like Phenom, Beamery, and Greenhouse are also potential targets, as are several firms now part of K1 Investments, including Jobvite, JazzHR, NXTThing RPO, and Lever. As AI becomes table stakes rather than differentiation, expect further consolidation as vendors seek scale, data, and distribution advantages.
The barbell market structure of massive suites and nimble innovators with little in between will likely persist through 2026, fundamentally reshaping how organizations approach talent acquisition technology decisions.
Let me know what you think? Who will be acquired by whom this coming year?