AI-related skills tests taken by job candidates rose 166% year over year in TestGorilla data covering 3.9 million employment-candidate skills tests, according to a November 2025 report by BetaNews. That is a sharp increase in testing activity—not a finding that 166% more employees use AI at work, or that candidates’ AI skills improved by that amount.
What the 166% increase measures
The figure comes from TestGorilla’s analysis of 3.9 million skills tests taken by employment candidates globally, as reported by BetaNews. It describes year-over-year growth in AI testing within that dataset. The article does not specify the exact comparison dates, how an “AI test” was defined, or whether the test-taking population was comparable between years.
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Those limits matter: a rise in the number of tests could reflect more employers choosing to assess AI skills, more candidates taking assessments, or changes in the platform’s activity. The figure alone cannot establish which explanation accounts for the increase. It also does not show that candidate competence rose, that employers’ AI use increased, or that AI skills tests predict performance on the job.
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Which other candidate skills tests increased?
BetaNews reported these year-over-year increases alongside AI testing:
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| Test category | Reported year-over-year growth |
|---|---|
| AI | 166% |
| Coding debugging | 133% |
| Computer literacy | 77% |
| Data structures/arrays | 73% |
These are growth rates in candidate test activity in the reported dataset, not pass rates, skill levels, or the share of workers who use each skill.
What a separate survey says about AI in hiring
TestGorilla’s State of Skills-Based Hiring 2025 offers related context, but it is a different study with a different population and measure. The company says independent third-party survey panels collected responses in April 2025 from 1,076 job seekers and 1,084 people involved in hiring decisions in the UK and US.
| Survey finding | What it represents |
|---|---|
| 65% of surveyed employers said they use AI in hiring | Employer-reported use in the UK and US survey; not a global census of employers |
| 76% of surveyed employers said they use skills tests to measure and validate candidate skills | Employer-reported practice in the same survey |
The report describes recruitment uses such as writing job descriptions, screening resumes, sourcing candidates, and interviewing candidates. Those examples concern hiring workflows; they do not establish how widely employees use AI across all workplace tasks.
Why employers may test for AI skills
As AI tools enter recruiting and other work processes, employers may want to distinguish familiarity with a tool from the ability to apply it thoughtfully. A well-designed assessment can be one input into that decision, particularly when it evaluates relevant tasks rather than asking candidates to claim general AI proficiency. But the available figures do not show which test formats employers used or whether the tests led to better hiring outcomes.
TestGorilla CEO and founder Wouter Durville said 71% of employers in the company’s 2025 report believed skills testing was more predictive of on-the-job success than resumes. That is a reported employer belief, conveyed by a company executive—not independent evidence that skills tests predict performance or cause better hiring decisions. TestGorilla people and culture leader Olive Turon likewise argued that technical and critical-thinking tests with anti-cheating measures are important for recruiters building AI-focused teams; that is her perspective, not a finding established by the test-growth statistic.
What candidates and employers can take from the trend
For candidates
- Treat AI proficiency as a practical skill to demonstrate: explain how you use AI, how you check its output, and when you decide not to rely on it.
- Prepare for an assessment by reviewing the role’s stated tasks, not by assuming every employer uses the same AI test.
- Ask how an assessment relates to the job and how its results are used. The reported growth does not reveal any employer’s particular hiring process.
For employers
- Define the job-related capability being assessed—such as evaluating generated information or using an AI tool in a specific workflow—before choosing a test.
- Use assessments as one part of selection and interpret results in context; the reported data does not establish that test scores alone predict job performance.
- Explain assessment expectations to candidates and consider whether the test measures the intended skill rather than access to a particular tool or test-taking strategy.
How to read the headline accurately
The strongest supported conclusion is that AI-related skills testing grew quickly within a large global dataset of candidate assessments. A separate UK-and-US survey suggests that AI use in recruitment and skills testing were reported by many employers in its sample. Neither result measures economy-wide employee AI adoption, and the two should not be combined into a single estimate of workplace AI use.
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