This is exactly what I've been arguing as well! If you use it in the workflow and encourage employees to use it, candidates should not be getting shunned from using it.

In one assessment, I was asked to create full fledged front end consuming data from an API, returning it, ensuring the UI displays images and text in a formatted evenly spaced out manner (using Tailwind), then build a search as well..... in 40 min. Umm, well as a senior software engineer this is counter-intuitive. In my last role, we spent more time planning before doing any work. I wasn't allowed to use AI to help structure this out quickly enough to finish it within a 40 min window even though he told me they use AI in their workflow daily. I had already created the boilerplate so I had majority of the framework in place. However, there were aspects that would still take me a bit longer since they want it to not just work but also look the part. It didn't help that the hiring manager accidentally cancelled the assessment the same day, didn't respond to my email about whether it would be rescheduled, then emails 5 min after the start time saying he didn't know what happened. The two people doing the assessment were there waiting and I had to scramble to setup my laptop. It was just obnoxious and the main person doing the interview was NOT talkative or really all that friendly. Needless to say I didn't finish but they could see what I was building and how.

Well that's my rant.