Klarna freezes hiring: AI chatbot to provide better experience than human employees

Klarna, the payment provider for smart shopping and hire purchase, suffered heavy losses last year, but is gradually recovering thanks to OpenAI. The ChatGPT-inspired bot now handles 2/3 of all customer chats and is on track for a massive profit increase this year.

According to Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski, customers are getting a better experience at better prices thanks to the use of the Klarna bot, the average call duration has been reduced from 11 to 2 minutes, and the number of repeat requests has also fallen sharply as the bot is said to make fewer mistakes.

The company currently employs around 4,200 people, although the number of employees has decreased significantly over the past year. Instead of new hires, the artificial intelligence is now a replacement for about 700 full-time jobs.

We are in the fortunate position of being a growing company, so for Klarna, AI enables us to grow more quickly without adding headcount as quickly as we would have done previously. We’re seeing across our whole business that things that previously took people a lot of time can be done much faster and much shorter with the help of ChatGPT, and we need fewer people to do the same thing. So, except for engineering, we’re taking the approach to say, ‘Let’s not recruit now, let’s see how this plays out.'

- Klarna spokesperson

CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski also mentioned to the head of OpenAI, Sam Altman, that Klarna would like to become the new "favourite guinea pig" of the artificial intelligence software company. Klarna could also have an IPO this year, a few years ahead of schedule, with a target valuation of around $20bn.