Chatbots are everywhere - they inhabit e-commerce sites, are behind the friendly customer service rep on the web and most recently have even started interviewing job applicants and giving performance feedback.

Banking, healthcare and e-commerce are the sectors keenest to adopt this form of artificial intelligence to optimise performance, although other industries are following suit. Replacing humans, bots take care of repetitive tasks and help organisations save on labour costs.

Microsoft, IBM, Google, Facebook and Amazon have already launched their own or acquired a chatbot platform, making the services accessible to more organisations and individuals around the world.

Most recently, HR professionals have spotted the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) for some activities. Hiring and employee engagement – both critical for HR success – are the first to attract the attention of organisations providing AI services.

Mya, for example, takes pride in being ‘ Your team’s AI recruiter’ and automates a big chunk of the recruitment process, while Engazify brings a pleasant twist to the always unpleasant task of performance feedback and doesn’t shy from saying that it improves productivity, motivation and helps foster company culture.

Recruiters and HR departments are clearly using bots to their advantage and the time has come for jobseekers to do the same. Chatbots can be used for interview preparation and for providing feedback: Siri, Cortana and Google Now all offer technology that has been available for some time.

Alternatively, CV bots can go a long way in helping jobseekers land interviews. Estherbot, a bot designed by Esther Crawford to speak to multiple hiring managers on the jobseeker’s behalf, proved this last year. Crawford was offered eight job interviews using Estherbot and created a startup to help other people with their own CV bots.

Now there are even more, better and often free tools: Motion.ai, Wit.ai, Flow XO and many others allow you to build cross-platform chatbots for multiple purposes.

It is evident that bots are here to stay and will take away many jobs, but individuals should start exploiting them as well as organisations do. Using AI to find a job and build a personal brand is one option, while using it for improving productivity and maintaining competitive skills is another.

Galina Racheva is co-founder of JobsInTheGulf.com and CHRO of MySecretTeam.