Paradox makes conversational recruiting software built around an AI assistant named Olivia, and it has been owned by Workday, Inc. since September 2025, when Workday acquired all outstanding stock of Paradox, Inc. Workday's filings now list the business as Paradox, LLC, a Delaware entity among Workday's subsidiaries. Workday is a public company headquartered in Pleasanton, California [not independently verified]. As of October 2, 2026, Paradox's website still says the company is headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, though that page is undated and may pre-date the acquisition [not independently verified]. The most recent Arizona headcount Arizona AI found is about 150 people in the Valley in December 2021, before the sale, as reported by the Phoenix Business Journal.
Paradox's Scottsdale history is documented in local business press. Paradox launched in 2016 under the name Recruiting.ai, founded by Aaron Matos, the former CEO of Jobing.com and Recruiting.com. The company was based at the ASU SkySong Innovation Center in Scottsdale until December 2017, when it moved to the Quad business complex off 64th Street and Thomas Road, according to the Phoenix Business Journal. Paradox was named among the awardees of the Arizona Commerce Authority's fall 2017 Arizona Innovation Challenge, under which each awardee was to receive up to $250,000. It was one of six awardees, and no record after the December 2017 announcement showing the amount actually paid to Paradox was found [not independently verified]. At its December 2021 Series C, the Phoenix Business Journal reported that Paradox had about 400 employees, including about 150 in the Valley. In February 2025 the same publication described Scottsdale as the headquarters where Paradox's product teams work, and reported a company-wide headcount of more than 630. The article does not say how many of those workers are in Arizona [not independently verified].
As of October 2, 2026, Paradox's website still says the company is headquartered in Scottsdale, with additional offices in Chicago, London, Sydney, Tel Aviv, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, and its contact page gives a mailing address at 6330 E Thomas Road in Scottsdale. The FAQ page that makes the headquarters claim is undated and may pre-date the acquisition [not independently verified]. No source found by Arizona AI gives a current Arizona employee count or describes the Scottsdale site's role after the sale [not independently verified]. Workday's annual report does not report Paradox or Arizona headcount separately [not independently verified]. As of the same date, the Paradox careers address redirected to Workday's careers page.
Workday's acquisition announcement says Paradox's assistant, Olivia, handles tasks such as screening applicants for minimum qualifications, scheduling interviews and answering candidate questions by mobile, chat and text message, and Paradox says its conversational AI can answer candidate questions in more than 100 languages. The company says that in 2024 its software automated the scheduling of more than 20 million interviews worldwide and powered over 1 billion AI-driven interactions with candidates, and in February 2025 it said it served nearly 1,000 clients. Workday says Paradox has powered more than 189 million AI-assisted candidate conversations. Before the sale Paradox announced a Series A of $13.34 million in 2019, a $40 million Series B in May 2020 and a $200 million Series C in December 2021 that it said valued the company at $1.5 billion. It made three acquisitions of its own by February 2025, and promoted Adam Godson to chief executive on March 11, 2024.
Workday announced a definitive agreement to acquire Paradox on August 21, 2025. Workday's SEC filings date the acquisition to September 2025, and its press release announcing completion is dated October 1, 2025. The purchase consideration was $1.1 billion, of which $20 million was Workday's previously held equity interest and the rest was cash. Workday said the two companies already shared over 200 mutual customers. On October 1, 2025 Workday said the Workday Paradox Candidate Experience Agent was available for purchase as part of its portfolio of AI agents, and on January 8, 2026 it announced that Paradox Conversational ATS was available through Workday. ATS stands for applicant tracking system [not independently verified].
The company has also faced security problems. Paradox says that on June 30, 2025, two security researchers reported a vulnerability to it, that they logged into a test account tied to a single client using a legacy password, that five candidates had information viewed only by the researchers, and that it fixed the issue within a few hours. The researchers' own count, as reported by Krebs on Security, was that the weak password exposed 64 million records. Those records came from McHire, the McDonald's hiring site run on Paradox software [not independently verified]. Paradox also confirmed that malware on the personal device of a longtime developer based in Vietnam stole password data. Separately, on September 29, 2026 Workday announced a reduction of approximately 2.5% of its worldwide workforce, primarily within its Product and Technology team, and select leased office space reductions. The filing does not identify a Paradox or Arizona share, so Arizona AI does not attribute those cuts to Scottsdale [not independently verified]. Arizona AI found no update on the reduction after the September 29, 2026 announcement.