Gap Inc. says its AI hiring assistant has scheduled 7,000 interviews

Gap Inc.'s recruiting team has put an AI assistant between hourly job applicants and store managers. The retailer, which owns Old Navy, Athleta and Banana Republic, said in a press release on 23 October 2026 that the assistant, which it calls Bridgette, has been piloted at more than 100 stores and six regional distribution centres since June, that nearly 45,000 people have used it and that it has scheduled more than 7,000 interviews, HR Dive reported.

Gap expects about 200,000 applications for seasonal store and distribution-centre jobs this year, according to the same report. The assistant helps a candidate find and apply for a job, answers common questions, books the interview, sends reminders and keeps the candidate informed through the process. It runs on software from Paradox, a conversational hiring company that Workday acquired, and on Workday Recruiting, CIO Dive's version of the report says.

What the numbers show

• Roughly one in six. More than 7,000 interviews against nearly 45,000 people is about 16% (7,000 ÷ 45,000). The two counts are not a funnel: "people who worked with the tool" includes anyone who only asked a question, and the reports do not say how many applied.
• A period, but no baseline. The counts run from June to late October 2026. Gap gave no time from application to interview, before or after, and no share of interviews that candidates attended.
• No hires. Neither report says how many of the 7,000 interviews led to an offer, or how many seasonal jobs Gap is filling; HR Dive says the company did not immediately answer that question.
• No footprint after the pilot. The reports give the pilot's size and do not say how many stores use the assistant now.

The people side

Gap says the assistant was built partly to free store managers from the admin of recruiting. Managers did that scheduling before; the reports do not say how many hours it took them or how many it takes now. On who decides, the only statement is the chief people officer's.

Technology can help manage the repetitive coordination behind hiring, while our people stay focused on the conversations and decisions that build great teams.

Amy Thompson, chief people officer at Gap Inc., in a statement quoted by HR Dive

Neither report says whether the assistant screens or ranks applicants before a manager sees them, or only schedules whoever applies. That is the difference between a calendar tool and a tool that takes part in a hiring decision, and it is the first thing to establish about any product of this kind.

The catch

Every figure is Gap's own, from a press release, with no method and no cost: nothing on licence fees, set-up, or the price per candidate or per interview. The seller's claims are larger than anything Gap reported. In a Workday post dated 1 October 2025, Paradox's chief executive, Adam Godson, said customers that took 20 or 30 days to hire now take two to three. That is a vendor's account of unnamed customers; Gap has published no time-to-hire figure to set beside it.

What to do if you run recruiting for hourly or seasonal roles

• This week, time one store or site: days from application to scheduled interview, manager hours spent scheduling, and the share of interviews attended. Those three numbers are the baseline a vendor's result has to beat.
• Ask any scheduling-assistant vendor in writing whether the product screens, scores or ranks candidates. If it does, take that answer to employment counsel before a pilot.
• If you trial one, count hires and no-shows as well as interviews booked, by site, so the result is more than a volume figure.