Which AI Is Actually in Your ATS? Bullhorn, Crelate, Loxo, JobAdder, Recruit CRM

Every agency applicant tracking system (ATS) now advertises AI. What that means on your desk depends on three things: which plan you pay for, which add-ons you bought, and whether anyone switched the features on. This guide covers five systems agencies use. It is vendor-neutral, and it tells you where each fact comes from.

One warning first: most pricing and plan comparisons for these tools are written by competitors. That includes the third-party price reads below. Treat them as starting points for a conversation with your account manager, not as quotes.

Bullhorn

What Bullhorn says the AI does. The AI Assistant summarizes candidate profiles, drafts outreach emails, generates screening questions, and writes candidate pitches and job descriptions, reading the open record plus notes and CV data. Bullhorn says processing stays "within Bullhorn's firewalls." Prompt Studio lets admins create approved prompt templates so all recruiters produce consistent output; Bullhorn says setup takes "days to start and weeks to fully operate" (Bullhorn, undated, vendor).

Amplify is a separate product, announced in May 2025, with autonomous agents for sourcing, matching, async voice and chat screening with scoring, building submission packets, outreach, record enrichment and interview scheduling (Bullhorn, May 2025, vendor).

Plans and price (third-party read). A pricing page from 100Hires, a competitor, dated July 2026, lists Starter at $99 per user per month (1-2 users), Core at $165 per user per month (3+ users) and Pro at custom pricing. It lists the AI Assistant as a Pro feature and describes Amplify as metered in "activities," with no public dollar price (100Hires, Jul 2026). We could not confirm plan-by-plan AI inclusion from Bullhorn itself, so ask your account manager before assuming you have it, or that you don't.

Crelate

A review from Skima, a competitor, updated May 2026, lists Crelate Business at $119 per user per month with a "Basic AI Assistant." Business Plus (custom price) adds AI Co-Pilot, Agents and sequencing; Enterprise adds AI insights and early agent access. Reviewer complaints it summarizes: limited reporting, noisy search, premium parsing and AI limits sold as add-ons, and a steep learning curve for automations (Skima, May 2026).

Loxo

Loxo has a free tier with limited AI searches and a basic ATS, plus Professional and Enterprise plans. Loxo does not publish prices, and third-party estimates we found conflict with each other, so we are not repeating them. The same competitor write-up says outreach sequences are template and merge-field based and quotes G2 reviewers calling AI ranking results "noisy" (GoPerfect, mid-2026).

JobAdder and Recruit CRM

A comparison from iSmartRecruit, a competitor, lists JobAdder's "Adder Intelligence" as Smart Summaries, Smart Sync, Smart Job Descriptions, Smart Floats and AI skill matching, with no public pricing and a "Lite" plan for boutique agencies. It lists Recruit CRM with AI resume parsing, candidate matching and a GPT integration, from about $100-109 a month, without making clear whether that is per user (iSmartRecruit, 2026).

Side by side

Seven questions to ask your vendor

1. Which AI features are included in our current plan, by name?
2. Which are add-ons, and how are they metered?
3. Can an admin save shared prompt templates so every recruiter gets the same format?
4. Where is candidate data processed when the AI runs, and is it used to train models?
5. Which features score, rank or filter candidates, and which only draft?
6. What does setup help include on our plan?
7. Can we trial a feature for 30 days before paying more?

Question 5 matters for more than accuracy. Features that score or rank candidates can bring audit and notice duties in some places; New York City's Local Law 144, for example, covers "employers and employment agencies" using automated employment decision tools (DLA Piper, Jan 2026). See the AI hiring rules post. That is general information, not legal advice.

If your plan doesn't include the AI

You have three honest options:

• Upgrade or buy the add-on. Worth it if the feature writes straight into your ATS records and your desk sends enough submittals to use it daily.
• Use a business AI account. A business plan of ChatGPT, Claude or Microsoft Copilot can draft submittals and ads from pasted notes. The trade-off: output lives outside your ATS, so you need a rule for what candidate data may go in and where the final draft is saved. Use accounts with business privacy terms, never personal ones.
• Wait. If your desk sends a handful of submittals a week, a good written template and a checklist may be enough for now.

The setup gap

Whichever path you take, someone has to decide your submittal format, write the templates, set the review rule and train the desk. Bullhorn's own GRID 2026 survey (vendor) names "unclear implementation strategy" among the top barriers to AI adoption, and only 10% of firms have implemented agentic AI across the full workflow (Bullhorn, Feb 2026). The features are rarely the hard part.

For the template itself, see how to build an AI submittal template. For the money side, see is AI worth it for a small agency.

Not sure what you have?

Lunan's free conversation starts with exactly this question. Tell us your ATS and plan, and we'll tell you what you likely have, what is worth switching on, and whether you need to buy anything at all.