Latest news with #Ribbon
Straits Times
2 days ago
- Business
- Straits Times
Job interviews enter a strange new world with AI that talks back
Even as AI handles more of the hiring process, most companies selling the technology still view it as a tool for gathering information, not making the final call. PHOTO: REUTERS NEW YORK - For better or worse, the next generation of job interviews has arrived: Employers are now rolling out artificial intelligence simulating live, two-way screener calls using synthetic voices. Start-ups like Apriora, HeyMilo AI and Ribbon all say they're seeing swift adoption of their software for conducting real-time AI interviews over video. Job candidates converse with an AI 'recruiter' that asks follow-up questions, probes key skills and delivers structured feedback to hiring managers. The idea is to make interviewing more efficient for companies – and more accessible for applicants – without requiring recruiters to be online around the clock. 'A year ago this idea seemed insane,' said Arsham Ghahramani, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ribbon, a Toronto-based AI recruiting start-up that recently raised US$8.2 million (S$10.6 million) in a funding round led by Radical Ventures. 'Now it's quite normalised.' Employers are drawn to the time savings, especially if they're hiring at high volume and running hundreds of interviews a day. And job candidates – especially those in industries like trucking and nursing, where schedules are often irregular – may appreciate the ability to interview at odd hours, even if a majority of Americans polled in 2024 by Consumer Reports said they were uncomfortable with the idea of algorithms grading their video interviews. At Propel Impact, a Canadian social impact investing nonprofit, a shift to AI screener interviews came about because of the need to scale up the hiring process. The organisation had traditionally relied on written applications and alumni-conducted interviews to assess candidates. But with plans to bring on more than 300 fellows this year, that approach quickly became unsustainable. At the same time, the rise of ChatGPT was diluting the value of written application materials. 'They were all the same,' said Cheralyn Chok, Propel's co-founder and executive director. 'Same syntax, same patterns.' Technology allowing AI to converse with job candidates on a screen has been in the works for years. But it wasn't until the public release of large language models like ChatGPT in late 2022 that developers began to imagine – and build – something more dynamic. Ribbon was founded in 2023 and began selling its offering the following year. Mr Ghahramani said the company signed nearly 400 customers in just eight months. HeyMilo and Apriora launched around the same time and also report fast growth, though each declined to share customer counts. Technical stumbles Even so, the rollout hasn't been glitch-free. A handful of clips circulating on TikTok show interview bots repeating phrases or misinterpreting simple answers. One widely shared example involved an AI interviewer created by Apriora repeatedly saying the phrase 'vertical bar pilates.' Aaron Wang, Apriora's co-founder and CEO, attributed the error to a voice model misreading the term 'Pilates.' He said the issue was fixed promptly and emphasized that such cases are rare. 'We're not going to get it right every single time,' he said. 'The incident rate is well under 0.001 per cent.' Braden Dennis, who has used chatbot technology to interview candidates for his AI-powered investment research start-up FinChat, noted that AI sometimes struggles when candidates ask specific follow-up questions. 'It is definitely a very one-sided conversation,' he said. 'Especially when the candidate asks questions about the role. Those can be tricky to field from the AI.' Start-ups providing the technology emphasized their approach to monitoring and support. HeyMilo maintains a 24/7 support team and automated alerts to detect issues like dropped connections or failed follow-ups. 'Technology can fail,' CEO Sabashan Ragavan said, 'but we've built systems to catch those corner cases.' Ribbon has a similar protocol. Any time a candidate clicks a support button, an alert is triggered that notifies the CEO. While the videos of glitches are a bad look for the sector, Mr Ghahramani said he sees the TikToks making fun of the tools as a sign the technology is entering the mainstream. Preparing job applicants Candidates applying to FinChat, which uses Ribbon for its screener interviews, are notified up front that they'll be speaking to an AI and that the team is aware it may feel impersonal. 'We let them know when we send them the link to complete it that we know it is a bit dystopian and takes the 'human' out of human resources,' Mr Dennis said. 'That part is not lost on us.' Still, he said, the asynchronous format helps widen the talent pool and ensures strong applicants aren't missed. 'We have had a few folks drop out of the running once I sent them the AI link,' Mr Dennis said. 'At the end of the day, we are an AI company as well, so if that is a strong deterrent then that's OK.' Propel Impact prepares candidates by communicating openly about its reasons for using AI in interviews, while hosting information sessions led by humans to maintain a sense of connection with candidates. 'As long as companies continue to offer human touch points along the way, these tools are going to be seen far more frequently,' Mr Chok said. Regulators have taken notice. While AI interview tools in theory promise transparency and fairness, they could soon face more scrutiny over how they score candidates – and whether they reinforce bias at scale. Illinois now requires companies to disclose whether AI is analysing interview videos and to get candidates' consent, and New York City mandates annual bias audits for any automated hiring tools used by local employers. Beyond screening calls Though AI interviewing technology is mainly being used for initial screenings, Ribbon's Mr Ghahramani said 15 per cent of the interviews on its platform now happen beyond the screening stage, up from just 1 per cent a few months ago. This suggests customers are using the technology in new ways. Some employers are experimenting with AI interviews in which they can collect compensation expectations or feedback on the interview process – potentially awkward conversations that some candidates, and hiring managers, may prefer to see delegated to a bot. In a few cases, AI interviews are being used for technical evaluations or even to replace second-round interviews with a human. 'You can actually compress stages,' said Mr Wang. 'That first AI conversation can cover everything from 'Are you authorized to work here?' to fairly technical, domain-specific questions.' Even as AI handles more of the hiring process, most companies selling the technology still view it as a tool for gathering information, not making the final call. 'We don't believe that AI should be making the hiring decision,' Mr Ragavan said. 'It should just collect data to support that decision.' BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
Mint
2 days ago
- Business
- Mint
Job Interviews Enter a Strange New World With AI That Talks Back
(Bloomberg) -- For better or worse, the next generation of job interviews has arrived: Employers are now rolling out artificial intelligence simulating live, two-way screener calls using synthetic voices. Startups like Apriora, HeyMilo AI and Ribbon all say they're seeing swift adoption of their software for conducting real-time AI interviews over video. Job candidates converse with an AI 'recruiter' that asks follow-up questions, probes key skills and delivers structured feedback to hiring managers. The idea is to make interviewing more efficient for companies — and more accessible for applicants — without requiring recruiters to be online around the clock. You may be interested in 'A year ago this idea seemed insane,' said Arsham Ghahramani, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ribbon, a Toronto-based AI recruiting startup that recently raised $8.2 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures. 'Now it's quite normalized.' Employers are drawn to the time savings, especially if they're hiring at high volume and running hundreds of interviews a day. And job candidates — especially those in industries like trucking and nursing, where schedules are often irregular — may appreciate the ability to interview at odd hours, even if a majority of Americans polled last year by Consumer Reports said they were uncomfortable with the idea of algorithms grading their video interviews. At Propel Impact, a Canadian social impact investing nonprofit, a shift to AI screener interviews came about because of the need to scale up the hiring process. The organization had traditionally relied on written applications and alumni-conducted interviews to assess candidates. But with plans to bring on more than 300 fellows this year, that approach quickly became unsustainable. At the same time, the rise of ChatGPT was diluting the value of written application materials. 'They were all the same,' said Cheralyn Chok, Propel's co-founder and executive director. 'Same syntax, same patterns.' Technology allowing AI to converse with job candidates on a screen has been in the works for years. Companies like HireVue pioneered one-way, asynchronous video interviews in the early 2010s and later layered on automated scoring using facial expressions and language analysis —features that drew both interest and criticism. (The visual analysis was rolled back in 2020.) But those platforms largely left the experience static: candidates talking into a screen with no interaction, leaving recorded answers for a human to dissect after the fact. It wasn't until the public release of large language models like ChatGPT in late 2022 that developers began to imagine — and build — something more dynamic. Ribbon was founded in 2023 and began selling its offering the following year. Ghahramani said the company signed nearly 400 customers in just eight months. HeyMilo and Apriora launched around the same time and also report fast growth, though each declined to share customer counts. 'The first year ChatGPT came out, recruiters weren't really down for this,' said HeyMilo CEO Sabashan Ragavan. 'But the technology has gotten a lot better as time has gone on.' Even so, the rollout hasn't been glitch-free. A handful of clips circulating on TikTok show interview bots repeating phrases or misinterpreting simple answers. One widely shared example involved an AI interviewer created by Apriora repeatedly saying the phrase 'vertical bar pilates.' Aaron Wang, Apriora's co-founder and CEO, attributed the error to a voice model misreading the term 'Pilates.' He said the issue was fixed promptly and emphasized that such cases are rare. 'We're not going to get it right every single time,' he said. 'The incident rate is well under 0.001%.' Chok said Propel Impact had also seen minor glitches, though it was unclear whether they stemmed from Ribbon itself or a candidate's Wi-Fi connection. In those cases, the applicant was able to simply restart. Braden Dennis, who has used chatbot technology to interview candidates for his AI-powered investment research startup FinChat, noted that AI sometimes struggles when candidates ask specific follow-up questions. 'It is definitely a very one-sided conversation,' he said. 'Especially when the candidate asks questions about the role. Those can be tricky to field from the AI.' Startups providing the technology emphasized their approach to monitoring and support. HeyMilo maintains a 24/7 support team and automated alerts to detect issues like dropped connections or failed follow-ups. 'Technology can fail,' Ragavan said, 'but we've built systems to catch those corner cases.' Ribbon has a similar protocol. Any time a candidate clicks a support button, an alert is triggered that notifies the CEO. 'Interviews are high stakes,' Ghahramani said. 'We take those issues really seriously.' And while the videos of glitches are a bad look for the sector, Ghahramani said he sees the TikToks making fun of the tools as a sign the technology is entering the mainstream. Candidates applying to FinChat, which uses Ribbon for its screener interviews, are notified up front that they'll be speaking to an AI and that the team is aware it may feel impersonal. 'We let them know when we send them the link to complete it that we know it is a bit dystopian and takes the 'human' out of human resources,' Dennis said. 'That part is not lost on us.' Still, he said, the asynchronous format helps widen the talent pool and ensures strong applicants aren't missed. 'We have had a few folks drop out of the running once I sent them the AI link,' Dennis said. 'At the end of the day, we are an AI company as well, so if that is a strong deterrent then that's OK.' Propel Impact prepares candidates by communicating openly about its reasons for using AI in interviews, while hosting information sessions led by humans to maintain a sense of connection with candidates. 'As long as companies continue to offer human touch points along the way, these tools are going to be seen far more frequently,' Chok said. Regulators have taken notice. While AI interview tools in theory promise transparency and fairness, they could soon face more scrutiny over how they score candidates — and whether they reinforce bias at scale. Illinois now requires companies to disclose whether AI is analyzing interview videos and to get candidates' consent, and New York City mandates annual bias audits for any automated hiring tools used by local employers. Though AI interviewing technology is mainly being used for initial screenings, Ribbon's Ghahramani said 15% of the interviews on its platform now happen beyond the screening stage, up from just 1% a few months ago. This suggests customers are using the technology in new ways. Some employers are experimenting with AI interviews in which they can collect compensation expectations or feedback on the interview process — potentially awkward conversations that some candidates, and hiring managers, may prefer to see delegated to a bot. In a few cases, AI interviews are being used for technical evaluations or even to replace second-round interviews with a human. 'You can actually compress stages,' said Wang. 'That first AI conversation can cover everything from 'Are you authorized to work here?' to fairly technical, domain-specific questions.' Even as AI handles more of the hiring process, most companies selling the technology still view it as a tool for gathering information, not making the final call. 'We don't believe that AI should be making the hiring decision,' Ragavan said. 'It should just collect data to support that decision.' (Updates sixth paragraph to clarify HireVue uses language analysis, and to note it removed facial analysis in 2020.) More stories like this are available on
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
An AI bot might be asking the questions at your next job interview
When Wafa Shafiq realized her upcoming job interview would be conducted by an artificial intelligence bot, she thought: Why not? "I thought it'd be really cool. I wanted to try it," said Shafiq. Alex, an AI bot powered by software company Aprioria, interviewed the 26-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., for a marketing position at a retirement insurance agency. It asked her about herself and her experience for 30 minutes. It acknowledged her responses and complimented them before asking a followup question. "I was shocked that it was asking such good followup questions," Shafiq told CBC News. "My expectations had been lower." While some companies are turning to artificial intelligence to streamline their recruitment processes, some job candidates are concerned about how they're being evaluated and losing the chance to connect with recruiters. WATCH | How AI is changing the job interview process: This technology is still in the early phase, says Mike Shekhtman, senior regional director at Canadian employment agency Robert Half. "As the technology improves, we will continue to see perhaps an acceleration." Ribbon, an AI-interviewer software company, is among the Canadian companies to have seen an opportunity in this market. "A year ago, people thought we were crazy," Arsham Ghahramani, Ribbon's CEO, said in an interview. In nine months, Ribbon has amassed 400 customers who now use its bot to conduct interviews. Ghahramani and his team spent more than a year building and training their AI using publicly available interviews and voice datasets. They wanted their AI to show the right emotion and ask the right questions, he said. But some candidates would prefer a human recruiter. Maureen Green, a health technology consultant, was approached to do an interview for a position in a Canadian health-care company that uses AI to direct patient calls. She was told the interview would be done by the company's own AI bot. At first, Green, who lives in Vancouver, said she was impressed by the system, finding it spoke and acted similarly to a human. "It really did feel like a conversation and it felt like it was listening." But what was scheduled to be a 30-minute interview ended up going for more than an hour, as the AI kept asking followup questions and showed no signs of drawing the interview to an end. Not knowing what else to do, Green said she thanked the AI interviewer for its time. "I said: 'I'm so sorry, but it was wonderful talking to you. Thank you so much for the opportunity,' and so it ended." LISTEN | Are we ready for robots among us?: Green thought she had done well in the interview, but she never heard back. "I had been left feeling taken advantage of because … I put a lot of effort into this interview and really took it seriously, but I also get the feeling that it's being trained by talking to people," she said. "It can be done well, I'm sure, but this wasn't it." Shafiq shared the sentiment. She entered her interview with curiosity and some skepticism. The email she received to schedule the interview didn't mention AI — she only found out after looking into it herself. And she didn't get a followup after the interview either. She thought it was "cool" that she could schedule the interview at any time of the day, even in the middle of the night, and was impressed by the few glitches she experienced — it only had difficulty answering some of her questions. But she wished she had more information on how her performance would be evaluated. "If companies do use AI for recruitment, there's such an opportunity for communicating what the benefits of it are," Shafiq said. "Sending a message beforehand to be like: 'This is what to expect, this is how to prepare.'" Although Shafiq is open to doing more AI interviews, she said she missed the human connection she usually gets with regular interviews. "There's no small talk, there was nothing personal and I wasn't able to really tell if my answers were landing or not." Is it a replacement for human recruiters? Job interviews done by AI agents allow for much more flexibility in hiring internal roles and can accelerate the process, said Elena McGuire, director of people and special projects at Thrive Career Wellness, a Toronto-based HR consulting company. The company has several positions open at once and they hire internationally. They use Ribbon, which allows candidates to choose an interview time that works for them and to interview in French for bilingual positions. McGuire said it allowed the company to cut down thousands of applicants and hire six new employees. "It's really not meant to replace us HR folk, but help us." McGuire also said that the company's hiring decisions aren't made by AI. Ribbon summarizes interviews and gives scores based on the company's requirements, allowing recruiters to decide whether or not to move ahead with the candidate. "They're [companies] looking at ways to not lose any beat and not miss out on candidates," said Shekhtman, of employment agency Robert Half. "But that comes with a tremendous amount of caution as well," he added, to ensure AI agents don't overlook qualified candidates or spotlight unqualified ones by focusing too much on technicalities. But companies will ultimately leverage any tool that will help them streamline their processes, especially if their resources are waning, said Shekhtman. "If you don't embrace [the technology], you're going to get run over by it." When it comes to being interviewed by AI, Terri Griffith, Keith Beedie chairholder in innovation and entrepreneurship at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, said she hasn't heard yet "a candidate be excited." She said AI is being used by both recruiters and applicants. "This is a punchline to a joke that goes: 'I used my AI to apply for the job, they used AI to review my application … now we're having an [AI] interview.'" LISTEN | What AI means for the future of your career: Griffith sees the use of AI bots in interviews having various potential outcomes: with enough pushback could come regulation or with enough improvement of the technology and its implementation could come approval. Green, reflecting on her interview, noted that although she is "really open" to AI, many people are not, and she hopes companies will understand that their trust needs to be earned. "I don't think we need to be speedy in applying these systems to what we are doing. I think we should be thoughtful and respectful of the people it's interacting with," she said. "So hopefully that will change, but I'm optimistic." Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
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Business Standard
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Job interviews enter a strange new world with AI software that talks back
For better or worse, the next generation of job interviews has arrived: Employers are now rolling out artificial intelligence simulating live, two-way screener calls using synthetic voices. Startups like Apriora, HeyMilo AI and Ribbon all say they're seeing swift adoption of their software for conducting real-time AI interviews over video. Job candidates converse with an AI 'recruiter' that asks follow-up questions, probes key skills and delivers structured feedback to hiring managers. The idea is to make interviewing more efficient for companies — and more accessible for applicants — without requiring recruiters to be online around the clock. 'A year ago this idea seemed insane,' said Arsham Ghahramani, co-founder and chief executive officer of Ribbon, a Toronto-based AI recruiting startup that recently raised $8.2 million in a funding round led by Radical Ventures. 'Now it's quite normalised.' Employers are drawn to the time savings, especially if they're hiring at high volume and running hundreds of interviews a day. And job candidates — especially those in industries like trucking and nursing, where schedules are often irregular — may appreciate the ability to interview at odd hours, even if a majority of Americans polled last year by Consumer Reports said they were uncomfortable with the idea of algorithms grading their video interviews. At Propel Impact, a Canadian social impact investing nonprofit, a shift to AI screener interviews came about because of the need to scale up the hiring process. The organization had traditionally relied on written applications and alumni-conducted interviews to assess candidates. But with plans to bring on more than 300 fellows this year, that approach quickly became unsustainable. At the same time, the rise of ChatGPT was diluting the value of written application materials. 'They were all the same,' said Cheralyn Chok, Propel's co-founder and executive director. 'Same syntax, same patterns.' Technology allowing AI to converse with job candidates on a screen has been in the works for years. Companies like HireVue pioneered one-way, asynchronous video interviews in the early 2010s and later layered on automated scoring using facial expressions and language analysis —features that drew both interest and criticism. (The visual analysis was rolled back in 2020.) But those platforms largely left the experience static: candidates talking into a screen with no interaction, leaving recorded answers for a human to dissect after the fact. It wasn't until the public release of large language models like ChatGPT in late 2022 that developers began to imagine — and build — something more dynamic. Ribbon was founded in 2023 and began selling its offering the following year. Ghahramani said the company signed nearly 400 customers in just eight months. HeyMilo and Apriora launched around the same time and also report fast growth, though each declined to share customer counts. 'The first year ChatGPT came out, recruiters weren't really down for this,' said HeyMilo CEO Sabashan Ragavan. 'But the technology has gotten a lot better as time has gone on.' Technical stumbles Even so, the rollout hasn't been glitch-free. A handful of clips circulating on TikTok show interview bots repeating phrases or misinterpreting simple answers. One widely shared example involved an AI interviewer created by Apriora repeatedly saying the phrase 'vertical bar pilates.' Aaron Wang, Apriora's co-founder and CEO, attributed the error to a voice model misreading the term 'Pilates.' He said the issue was fixed promptly and emphasized that such cases are rare. 'We're not going to get it right every single time,' he said. 'The incident rate is well under 0.001%.' Chok said Propel Impact had also seen minor glitches, though it was unclear whether they stemmed from Ribbon itself or a candidate's Wi-Fi connection. In those cases, the applicant was able to simply restart. Braden Dennis, who has used chatbot technology to interview candidates for his AI-powered investment research startup FinChat, noted that AI sometimes struggles when candidates ask specific follow-up questions. 'It is definitely a very one-sided conversation,' he said. 'Especially when the candidate asks questions about the role. Those can be tricky to field from the AI.' Startups providing the technology emphasized their approach to monitoring and support. HeyMilo maintains a 24/7 support team and automated alerts to detect issues like dropped connections or failed follow-ups. 'Technology can fail,' Ragavan said, 'but we've built systems to catch those corner cases.' Ribbon has a similar protocol. Any time a candidate clicks a support button, an alert is triggered that notifies the CEO. 'Interviews are high stakes,' Ghahramani said. 'We take those issues really seriously.' And while the videos of glitches are a bad look for the sector, Ghahramani said he sees the TikToks making fun of the tools as a sign the technology is entering the mainstream. Preparing Job Applicants Candidates applying to FinChat, which uses Ribbon for its screener interviews, are notified up front that they'll be speaking to an AI and that the team is aware it may feel impersonal. 'We let them know when we send them the link to complete it that we know it is a bit dystopian and takes the 'human' out of human resources,' Dennis said. 'That part is not lost on us.' Still, he said, the asynchronous format helps widen the talent pool and ensures strong applicants aren't missed. 'We have had a few folks drop out of the running once I sent them the AI link,' Dennis said. 'At the end of the day, we are an AI company as well, so if that is a strong deterrent then that's OK.' Propel Impact prepares candidates by communicating openly about its reasons for using AI in interviews, while hosting information sessions led by humans to maintain a sense of connection with candidates. 'As long as companies continue to offer human touch points along the way, these tools are going to be seen far more frequently,' Chok said. Regulators have taken notice. While AI interview tools in theory promise transparency and fairness, they could soon face more scrutiny over how they score candidates — and whether they reinforce bias at scale. Illinois now requires companies to disclose whether AI is analyzing interview videos and to get candidates' consent, and New York City mandates annual bias audits for any automated hiring tools used by local employers. Beyond Screening Calls Though AI interviewing technology is mainly being used for initial screenings, Ribbon's Ghahramani said 15% of the interviews on its platform now happen beyond the screening stage, up from just 1% a few months ago. This suggests customers are using the technology in new ways. Some employers are experimenting with AI interviews in which they can collect compensation expectations or feedback on the interview process — potentially awkward conversations that some candidates, and hiring managers, may prefer to see delegated to a bot. In a few cases, AI interviews are being used for technical evaluations or even to replace second-round interviews with a human. 'You can actually compress stages,' said Wang. 'That first AI conversation can cover everything from 'Are you authorized to work here?' to fairly technical, domain-specific questions.' Even as AI handles more of the hiring process, most companies selling the technology still view it as a tool for gathering information, not making the final call. 'We don't believe that AI should be making the hiring decision,' Ragavan said. 'It should just collect data to support that decision.'
Daily Mirror
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Chocolate fans baffled after realising 'Blue Ribbon's' real name
Chocolate fans have only just realised that Blue Riband has been the correct name for their favourite wafer biscuit bar for the last 80 or so years Chocolate lovers have been scratching their heads in confusion after learning the true pronunciation of a much-loved wafer biscuit bar. For ages, enthusiasts assumed that Nestle's Blue Riband was said like 'Blue Ribbon'. Meanwhile, there's been a fierce debate on whether it should sound like 'Ribbund' or 'Ri-band'. An old TV advert from 1985 settled the argument by declaring the bar should be called Blue 'Ribbund', avoiding the 'band' pronunciation in the famous confectionery's name. Originally released in 1936 by Gray Dunn and later taken over by Rowntree's, the brand was snapped up by Nestle in 1988. It has since become a staple in households due to its tasty combination of four layers of thin wafer with a sumptuous praline filling, all enrobed in velvety milk chocolate. Nonetheless, numerous individuals are adamant that the treat used to go by Blue 'Ribbon'. Social media has been abuzz as people air their astonishment regarding the bar's proper name. One Reddit post went viral when a user exclaimed: "Wait a minute... they aren't called 'Blue Ribbons'?" The replies were swift, with one correcting: "Nope, they're not. They've been called Blue Riband for about 80 odd years." A fellow poster joined in, saying, "I've always called them Blue Ribbons, you are not alone," A third admitted, "Had me fooled for 18 years," joining a chorus of bemused consumers. Brittany Miller, a TikTok sensation with 2.4 million followers, was left gobsmacked by the actual name of a popular chocolate bar during her latest grocery haul. One follower reacted to her discovery, saying: "I thought they were blue ribbon as well!". "Literally has this discussion the other day they where defo called blue ribbon," another chimed in. Another added their voice to the mix: "Yes blue ribbon! I also thought it was that!". On X, someone else expressed their astonishment: "I'm shook. For years I thought the lunchbox biscuit was called 'Blue Ribbon' when in actual fact it's 'Blue Riband'. "Nearly 18 and I never knew until today that it's Blue Riband not a Blue Ribbon. I'm shell shocked." However, those who got the name wrong aren't entirely to blame, as 'riband' actually means 'a ribbon'. Name aside, the chocolate remains beloved, and Nestle has just upped the ante by introducing a new Blue Riband flavour – a hazelnut bar. It's essentially the classic Blue Riband, known for its wafer layers enveloped in milk chocolate, but now with a creamy hazelnut filling to boot.
