LONDON (Reuters) -Capita, a British outsourcer that works with government, armed forces and companies, said it was using AI to cut recruitment from weeks to just hours, and it would roll out the service, developed with Salesforce Inc ( CRM ), this summer.

"We hire about 10,000 people for multiple operations and multiple contracts every year because of the nature of the transient workforce in some of our markets," Chief Executive Adolfo Hernandez said in an interview.

Salesforce ( CRM ) said Capita was the first business-to-business company in Britain to deploy its Agentforce AI, using it to automate more than 200 tasks, including recruitment, where it speeds up hiring from job specification to shortlisting.

Hernandez said the tool, built in the first three months of the year, could produce a qualified pipeline of candidates that had been matched to the job, leaving recruiters more time to dedicate to final interviews and bringing new staff onboard.

"We're going to tune it and then when we've got it ready, we'll go to market," he said. "High volume recruitment will probably be going to market this summer."