The retail market is becoming increasingly competitive. Customers are expecting more personalised offers and are also more aware of their choices. Operational costs are rising and the amounts of data retailers need to factor in when setting prices are accumulating nonstop. As a result, businesses are hunting for new strategies to increase revenue. Currently, the pricing process is in chaos.

From the automatic document-collating scanners and printers to robotic assembly lines, automation in the workplace has become commonplace. Yet a newer trend is the use of autonomous bots able to carry out complex activities based on scripts and artificial intelligence. Bots come in different flavours. Some, known as chatbots, are computer programs able to conduct a conversation via voice or text designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner. Chatbots are typically used in dialog systems for various practical purposes including customer service and information gathering. And just like most systems, chatbots come in different shapes and sizes.

Films have long made us aware of the potential of AI but many of these far-fetched ideas are now becoming a reality. In fact, 2016 may be the year we look back on in decades to come and declare was the time when AI went mainstream. And this suggestion has been supported by the increasing investment pouring into the space this year, with global heavyweights like Twitter buying British startups like Magic Pony Technology. AI is not so much sweeping across our world as seeping into it. A combination of enormous computing power and the latest deep-learning techniques are promising to give us better medical diagnoses, better products, better diets and better lives.

Thanks to increasing levels of computational power and an ocean of available data, algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly gaining sway in the world of business. And having seen how these tools have informed better decisions and boosted efficiencies across disciplines such as marketing or finance, it was inevitable businesses would start trying to harness them in the war for talent. "The world is starting to see the usefulness of data and software to help solve really difficult problems," says Alistair Shepherd, co-founder of Saberr, the HR analytics tool that uses algorithms to improve hiring decisions and internal team formation. "It makes sense that they might also be applicable to the way we hire." As a result, many recruiters have been exploring the ways in which algorithms and AI can help them better acquire talented candidates.