From the advancement of technology and a tightening labor market to ever-evolving candidate expectations, the HR landscape has changed tremendously over the past decade. HR professionals are fighting to keep up.

In addition to a changing landscape, many HR professionals are overwhelmed with the number of applications received and spend the majority of their time screening and sourcing resumes to find the right candidates. Recently, new AI technology permutations have been sprouting up to help HR personnel improve their recruiting and hiring efforts. According to a recent study, 96% of senior HR professionals believe AI has the potential to greatly enhance talent acquisition and retention, freeing them to focus on more strategic tasks.

It wasn’t until 2016 when we first saw AI technology in the form of chatbots –– also referred to as conversational AI. Conversational AI, by definition, is “the set of technologies behind automated messaging and speech-enabled applications that offer human-like interactions between computers and humans.” In other words, it communicates like a human by recognizing speech and text, understanding intent, deciphering different languages and responding in a way mimicking human conversation. While the concept of conversational AI is still fairly new, below are some ways it’s already helping HR teams today.

Screening applicants to find the right fit

As many HR professionals know, building strong relationships with candidates is vital to attracting and hiring top talent. Oftentimes, this relationship starts as soon as an applicant lands on the career site. Yet, recruiters can sometimes receive hundreds of applications for just one position, making it hard to devote enough attention to each candidate. In addition, it can sometimes take recruiters weeks to respond. These inefficiencies can damage trust with candidates and allows applicants time to find other jobs.

With conversational AI, HR teams can eliminate these inefficiencies by engaging with candidates before submitting their application. They can answer common queries and easily review an applicant’s information to determine whether they’re the right fit –– which can help accelerate the hiring process. A conversational AI solution can be customized to know exactly what qualifications and information the recruiter is seeking from a candidate. By embedding directly into a company’s current recruiting workflow, this technology allows for more human-like conversations and pushes applicants through the hiring process without action from the recruiter.

Personalize employee experience

Conversational AI is not only beneficial in recruiting, but it can also be used once a candidate is hired. Conversational AI can also be used throughout an employee’s onboarding process. Once an employee is hired, HR teams need to collect basic information like payroll and benefit forms. For large companies, it can be time-consuming for an HR team to collect information from each employee. Conversational AI can speed up the onboarding process by collecting employee information and answering questions about company policies instantly and accurately. HR teams can use that time to solve more critical and high priority issues while still meeting a candidate’s needs.

Many companies around the world have increased their HR investments in AI. In fact, 88 percent of global companies already use AI in some way for HR. From eliminating routine tasks for recruiters to improving employee engagement, conversational AI can change the way HR professionals do their job.

To learn more about how AI can impact the HR industry, check out our blog AI in Hiring: Biased or Not?