How Alto Doubled Driver Hiring with Fountain’s AI Recruiter and Candidate AI Agent

Alto is a premium rideshare and driver services company focused on delivering a high-quality, hospitality-driven experience across its markets. To support rapid growth while maintaining strict standards for driver quality, Alto needed a hiring approach that could scale efficiently without increasing recruiter headcount.

By leveraging Fountain’s AI-powered hiring capabilities, Alto transformed its driver hiring into a high-conversion, high-engagement pipeline—boosting applicant conversion, reducing time-to-hire, and more than doubling weekly driver hiring volume, all while keeping the recruiting team lean and focused on quality.

Turning AI Interviews into a Conversion Engine

“When we were just doing video interviews, we saw about 38% of applicants actually convert through that process. With the AI interview, that conversion rate has increased to 55%. It’s a rather significant bump.”
— Jimmy Leddy, Manager of Driver Growth, Alto

Alto depends on a steady pipeline of high-quality drivers to meet demand across its markets. Prior to implementing Fountain’s AI Interview, Alto relied on traditional video interviews, which limited candidate progression through the funnel.

By introducing AI interviews earlier in the process, Alto significantly increased applicant engagement and conversion. The result was a measurable lift: from 38% to 55%, demonstrating that automation, when done thoughtfully, can outperform traditional approaches while improving the candidate experience.

Deeper Engagement That Feels Human

“We saw an increase soon after we launched AI interview of people showing up for their on site driver assessment… We had a candidate say on site: ‘It’s so human.’”
— Fiona Maguire, VP of Growth, Alto

One of Alto’s core operating values is being obsessed with experience, for both riders and drivers. While adopting AI, the team was mindful of how candidates would perceive the technology.

What they found was unexpected: candidates engaged more deeply with the brand. The AI interview created a longer, more meaningful interaction that improved show-up rates for on-site assessments and reinforced Alto’s commitment to a high-touch experience, even at scale.

Hiring at Enterprise Volume with a Small Team

“Fountain has been very, very good at ensuring we’re hiring high quality drivers. Our team of recruiters… is a team of four, and we’re hiring over 200 drivers a week across all of our markets.”
— Jimmy Leddy, Manager of Driver Growth, Alto

Maintaining quality while hiring hundreds of drivers each week is a challenge for any organization, especially with a lean recruiting team.

Fountain enabled Alto to standardize and automate candidate evaluation without sacrificing quality. AI interviews helped surface stronger candidates earlier, allowing recruiters to focus their time where it mattered most while consistently delivering qualified drivers into the pipeline.

Faster Time-to-Hire Without Compromising Standards

“Fountain’s AI interview has done a great job of accelerating our process… It’s dropped our time to hire from about 12 days down to like 9 days.”
— Jimmy Leddy, Manager of Driver Growth, Alto

Speed is critical in driver hiring, but Alto was unwilling to trade speed for quality. Fountain’s AI-powered workflow allowed high-quality candidates to move through the process faster while filtering out weaker fits earlier.

The result was a three-day reduction in time-to-hire, enabling Alto to respond faster to market demand while keeping the recruiting team small, flexible, and effective.

Scaling Output—Not Headcount

“We’ve more than doubled the volume of drivers that we’re hiring every week, without changing the team size at all. And that’s pretty powerful.”
— Fiona Maguire, VP of Growth, Alto

Over the past year, Alto activated multiple AI-driven capabilities within Fountain, including AI interviews and candidate AI agents. Together, these tools eliminated bottlenecks, reduced repetitive candidate questions, and maintained fast response times throughout the process.

Most importantly, Alto achieved dramatic scale without increasing recruiter headcount, unlocking operational leverage that allowed the business to grow faster without added overhead.