Klarna’s AI Assistant Does the Work of 700 Humans
Klarna’s favorite new employee never takes a coffee break.
The buy now, pay later platform announced this week that, within one month, its artificial intelligence-powered assistant has handled two-thirds of customer service inquiries. According to the company, the technology “is on par” with human agents when considering customer satisfaction scores.
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The tool, powered by the Swedish company’s partnership with technology darling OpenAI, “is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents,” according to the company.
Though Klarna parted ways with hundreds of employees in several rounds of 2022 layoffs, a spokesperson for the company said, “The workforce reductions of 2022 are in no way connected to the AI assistant.”
That may be because Klarna outsources its customer service function to third-party providers. The spokesperson noted that for customer support, the Don C collaborator contracts four to five global partners that collectively employ more than 650,000 people.
Though those handling customer concerns may not have lost their jobs as a result of Klarna’s AI assistant, the scope of their roles could change.
“On average, 3,000 full-time agents have been dedicated to Klarna,” the spokesperson told Sourcing Journal. “Since the launch of the AI assistant, we have seen that number reduce to 2,300 agents fully dedicated to Klarna. Because our third-party customer service agents have such a large volume of work from other clients, they are able to redeploy those agents [to those] clients. But for Klarna, that implies a direct reduction in our customer service requirements, and therefore, cost savings.”
The spokesperson noted that despite the decline in the number of customer service agents needed to fulfill its demands, “There is still a need for more experienced and senior staff…with specialized training in complex or sensitive cases.”
The company noted it expects the assistant, still in its infantry, to drive $40 million in profit in 2024. That kind of extra cash could be boon as reports that the company has been considering filing for a U.S. IPO continue to surface.
In December 2023, Klarna’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, told The Telegraph the company has elected not to hire any new employees outside of its engineering department because he believes AI can automate many other tasks.
The assistant is hardly Klarna’s first foray into the world of generative AI, unlike some other companies feeling less bullish about the technology. In March 2023, the platform launched a ChatGPT plug-in to help personalize shopping experiences for consumers. By August 2023, the Afterpay competitor had deployed ChatGPT Enterprise for its internal team members.
Upon that announcement, Siemiatkowski expressed his fixation on AI’s potential to impact the company.
“When I come to work, I focus solely on how AI can help us realize our vision faster,” he said in an August 2023 statement.
It seems Siemiatkowski’s sentiment has lingered. The spokesperson said Klarna’s 150 million customers can expect to see enhancements to the technology in the coming months.
“We have a number of exciting new features already in the works which will be coming to the AI assistant soon, designed to enhance the shopping and payment experience with more personalized assistance and advanced interaction capabilities,” they said. “We are constantly exploring and iterating on multiple AI initiatives to improve both internal efficiencies and better customer outcomes.”
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