AWS unveils AI hiring tool as Target prepares for holiday recruiting

Amazon Web Services is pushing AI deeper into retail recruiting with a new product that could change how hourly workers get their first shot at a job. Connect Talent, which AWS put into Preview on April 28, uses AI agents to run structured voice interviews, apply assessments and hand recruiters transcripts and scores for review.

The pitch is built for employers that hire at scale, including retailers gearing up for holiday demand. Amazon is positioning the system as a way to cut down manual screening and move applicants through the funnel faster, which matters in stores where open shifts can pile up quickly and managers need people on the floor before traffic spikes.

For Target, the timing lands squarely in the middle of a workforce problem it knows well. The company says it has nearly 2,000 stores, more than 60 supply chain facilities and a team of more than 400,000 people. Target’s 2025 annual report says employment levels peak during the holiday season, when the chain has to fill a wave of temporary and permanent openings across stores and distribution sites.

That makes AI screening easy to understand as an operational tool. If a voice agent can handle the first pass, store leaders may get faster candidate rankings and less paperwork. In theory, that could shorten vacancies, reduce missed interviews and help Target staff up sooner when seasonal hiring heats up. For a retailer that has to move thousands of applicants through the process in a short window, speed is not a small advantage.

But the same system raises the concerns workers will notice first. A structured voice interview can feel efficient from the hiring side and impersonal from the applicant side, especially for someone trying to land a first retail job or move up from a part-time role. The more screening shifts to software, the more questions arise about accessibility for candidates who struggle with voice tools, whether the process gives everyone a fair shot and how much of the decision is being shaped by an algorithm before a human ever sees the file.

That scrutiny is not theoretical. Connect Talent is arriving as AI hiring tools face closer oversight over bias, transparency and compliance, and employers still carry responsibility for what happens in the hiring funnel even when automation does the early work. Target has already shown how large its holiday recruiting push can get: Retail Dive reported the company planned to hire about 100,000 seasonal in-store and supply chain employees, with starting pay ranging from $15 to $24 an hour.

For Target, the next hiring race may be about more than filling roles quickly. If AI screening spreads across retail, applicants could face a faster process that feels less human, while managers get a more standardized pipeline built for volume. The companies that win will be the ones that make that tradeoff without turning the first interview into a black box.