AI vs human proctoring: which should you use?

How the two actually differ

AI proctoring at PRUEFSTER is a review of the recording, not live surveillance. During the exam, the webcam and, where enabled, the shared screen are recorded. After the exam, detection models hosted by PRUEFSTER go through the recording and flag three kinds of incident: the participant leaving the room, another person appearing in the webcam image, and a chatbot such as ChatGPT being used in the screen share. Nothing is flagged while the session is running — the flags come out of the review, which can take up to three hours after the exam. Based on those detections, each session is rated green, yellow or red.

Human live proctoring means a proctor — yours or PRUEFSTER's — watches the exam as it happens. The proctor can react while the participant is still in the session, and there is a result the moment the exam ends. That immediacy is what you pay for: a live proctor costs more per session than the AI review, and the number of participants you can run at the same time is limited by the proctors you have.

The difference that is easiest to underestimate is who does the work afterwards. With AI proctoring, the exam provider reviews the flagged sessions — the traffic-light rating tells you which ones to look at, so this is far less effort than watching every recording yourself, but it is still work that happens after the exam. With live proctoring, incidents are handled during the exam and there is little left to review afterwards. If you need immediate results and intervention, choose live proctoring. If you have high volume, can wait up to three hours and are happy to review the flagged sessions yourself, AI proctoring is the lower-cost option.