While the current headlines focus on a fast-paced "AI race," at Malt, our data indicates there’s a real transformation around AI happening–one that’s more deliberate and looks at long-term shifts.
In 2024 we witnessed a massive 230% year-over-year surge in AI-related projects, showing a clear move from experimentation to enterprise-wide integration (Source: Malt Tech Trends 2025 Report). This explosive demand is creating a new bottleneck for companies: they can’t adopt AI without the elite expertise required to build, secure, and scale it effectively across all areas of a company. For over a decade, we've been at the heart of the connections between freelancers and companies. Our unique position at the intersection of talent and technology has guided how we've built our own AI tech tool stack with purpose, responsibility, and a clear focus on scalability.
Tech stacks today are being fundamentally reshaped by two main forces: the explosion of AI and a growing need for technological control and sovereignty. To create lasting value with AI, companies need to deliver early victories while also building the capacity to grow those solutions for the future.
This can present challenges ranging from regulatory hurdles to ethical concerns and competition. Therefore, it's more effective to focus on real use cases that align with core business values, rather than chasing industry hype (like building another chatbot). So, what does a real, value-driven use case look like for Malt users?
Automating manual tasks with AI Search frees hiring managers to concentrate on the nuances only they can evaluate, like a candidate's long-term potential, cultural fit, and leadership qualities. Ultimately, they’ll spend their time on more important actions that will drive the business forward rather than manually vetting profiles, working across tools, and trying to piecemeal information together. With AI at the core of recruitment strategies, companies can now move beyond traditional hiring limitations, directly connecting with skilled freelancers faster and more effectively than ever before.
We know first hand how much extra time hiring managers spend on manual and administrative tasks. In a people-centric field like recruitment, AI's immense value comes from streamlining processes and saving time, freeing people to focus on the meaningful connections that technology simply can’t replace.
In November 2024, we launched AI Search, a hiring manager’s personal AI assistant to help them find the perfect freelancer in just a few seconds. AI Search helps you refine your prompt into the perfect search criteria, then uses it to build a detailed brief and deliver an instant shortlist of top talent. Two-thirds of our corporate clients have used AI Search, making staffing 20% faster than creating a brief manually.
Our smart matching does the heavy lifting to clearly define a project’s needs. You can drop in an existing project brief or job description you have on hand, or write one with our AI which will help nail down the right skills, budget, and other relevant information.
Think of it this way, instead of just searching for an exact title like ‘AI manager,’ our AI dives deeper, considering context, related roles like ‘machine learning engineer,’ and other crucial skills and expertise to translate your true needs into a precise search. Rather than waiting 48 hours for initial profiles, in just a few seconds our AI Search analyzes and matches the project’s information to give you a curated shortlist of talented freelancers who are available to start right away. That way, you get the right talent for your project, even if you’re not certain of every technical term and skill.
With your curated list in hand, you can easily calibrate, compare, or modify the freelance profiles to your preferences (which also aids our AI to better understand what you’re looking for). If you need back up, set up automated search and have qualified candidates added to your project.
Building AI the right way is a deeply responsible, step-by-step process. It means we have to constantly check our work for risks and make critical adjustments to ensure every part works safely and fairly.
Did you know? The AI Act in the European Union categorizes recruitment AI systems as “high risk” because of the significant impact on people’s lives and careers. Because of potential risks, companies are obliged to clearly disclose when AI is used in decision-making and provide easy to understand explanations to those who are affected by the technology. Companies are required to ensure that their AI systems are free from discriminatory biases and must provide documentation to prove that they’ve taken all the necessary steps to mitigate harmful risks.
While fairness, transparency, and accountability have always been at the core of what we do at Malt, the AI Act and other regulations guide us in how we build and use AI internally and externally. Our commitment not only lies in adhering to these standards but reaffirms our goals of delivering AI products that support responsible, sustainable, and unbiased recruitment for all.
We are committed to creating solutions that are built with purpose, driven by integrity, and designed for real-world impact. To ensure we stay true to this mission, our teams use a set of four guiding AI principles as their compass for responsible innovation.
AI assists and augments humans, it doesn’t replace us: Our goal is to help people do their best work and after all, when it comes to hiring people, humans know what’s best. Our AI solutions are designed to work alongside hiring managers, offering insights and efficiencies to enhance, not overshadow human judgment. In the world of workforce hiring and management, AI can help automate tasks, provide and analyze information, as well as streamline ways of working. By keeping people in the driver’s seat of choice, our technology supports the vital human elements in recruitment.
Transparent recommendations: A common question we’ve all asked ourselves: isn’t Malt like a matching ChatGPT? Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have broad applications that can have specific features added to them to handle certain tasks. Unlike general-purpose AI, we’ve leveraged 12 years of internal data and millions of matches to develop proprietary algorithms specifically tailored to the nuances and complexities that come with hiring the right people at a scale. This means we can deliver insights and better matches with a deeper level of precision that generic models or private APIs simply can’t match. Building our own technology from the ground up also enables us to maintain control over data privacy, adapt to new requirements, and ensure that every outcome is directly aligned with what matters most to our users. By using our own small language model alongside other Generative AI (Google Gemini), we empower our users with tailored solutions that best fit their needs.
Responsible AI: Creating the right tools at the right time means considering their impact on people and the planet. At Malt, we respect data and privacy laws to ensure we’re only using data we have the right to use. With our small language models, we don’t use client project briefs or sensitive information to train models, ensuring zero risk of data exposure and maintaining strict privacy standards. We’re also thoughtful about our AI usage–not all tools require AI and LLMs as these technologies consume significant energy and resources. We only use Google Gemini for select actions and rely on our own small language models to minimize environmental impact and maximize user value.
The power of choice: With great technology comes great responsibility. That's why we build AI features that put users in control of their AI experience on Malt. Users can choose between different levels of AI assistance so they can balance automation with personal control. They also have the upper hand when it comes to deciding who they hire–while AI is here to help, hiring managers always have the final word on who they want on their Superteam.
Use Malt’s AI Search to easily find top freelancers and accelerate your organization’s freelancing journey today.
Curious about the top technologies companies are hiring freelancers for right now? How about which skills are most in demand and in supply?
Download our latest Malt Tech Trends 2025 Report to find out!
