Does Karat Detect Cheating?

2026-09-05

A Karat interview is live, with a real engineer watching you code. That makes a lot of candidates nervous about what counts as suspicious.

Here is the straight answer.

Yes, Karat actively looks for cheating. Your Interview Engineer is trained to spot certain behaviors during the call, an automated review checks the session afterwards, and the company gets an integrity flag if both agree. Karat does not tell candidates when this happens.

What Karat's interviewers watch for

Karat says each Interview Engineer (IVE) is trained to report abnormal behaviors that may indicate cheating, "such as typing outside of the browser window without explanation, frequently looking between monitors, or writing code in an unusual top-down or line-by-line manner."

If the IVE notices something, they document and timestamp it quietly. Karat says the interview is not stopped: "The interview proceeds as normal, with any suspicious behavior documented for later review."

The review after your interview

The call is not the only check. Karat describes a second layer:

• An automated integrity review makes an independent second pass on the session.
• If both the IVE and the automated review flag the same behavior, an integrity flag is applied.
• If only one of them flags it, Karat's Quality Control team reviews the recording and decides.

What the hiring team sees

A flagged interview gets a banner on the results page, and the outcome is shown as "Outcome Withheld - Integrity Risk."

The company then reviews the flagged moments using timestamps in the video recording and confirms whether a violation happened. Karat says the flag does not change your score and does not automatically disqualify you.

Karat is clear on one point candidates rarely hear: "Karat does not notify candidates about flags or any integrity concerns."

What is allowed

Karat's candidate FAQ says you may look up documentation during the coding portion, just as you would on the job. Let your Interview Engineer know when you do.

AI is more limited. Karat allows ChatGPT for looking up documentation, but "using ChatGPT to generate an approach or solution is not allowed."

For how other platforms handle this, see does CodeSignal detect cheating.

Staying calm on a live call

Karat's documented signals are about behavior an engineer can see, like typing elsewhere or glancing at another monitor. StealthCoder is an AI overlay that stays invisible during screen share. It runs separately from the browser and reads the problem on screen to help you think it through.