The power of such technology will be immediately apparent to any employer scrambling to fill jobs in a tight labor market -- not least positions for data scientists, whom companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon are competing to attract. Thanks to services like Eightfold, which rely on sophisticated algorithms to match workers and jobs, many employers may soon have access to a universe of prospective workers -- even for hard-to-fill roles -- whom they might not otherwise have come across. And while that could also help some candidates, there's a potential downside for job seekers: Such algorithms may also lower wages in these fields, said Bo Cowgill, an economist at Columbia University who has studied the use of artificial intelligence in hiring. "You get the more nontraditional, equally qualified, equally high-performing people," Mr. Cowgill said. But the employer "doesn't seem to have to compete for them as much."