Klarna, the $7 billion “buy now, pay later” startup used by companies like Versace, Nike and Wayfair, said Tuesday that its AI chatbot is “doing the equivalent of the work of 700 full-time employees.” [customer service] agents.”
The statement comes on the heels of Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski’s announcement in December that the company will no longer hire outside of engineering and that AI will take over the tasks of laid-off employees.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna Holding AB, at the IFGS 2022 Summit at the Guildhall in London, UK, Monday 4 April 2022. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Klarna’s OpenAI-powered AI chatbot has been live for about a month, and the company is “incredibly excited about it,” according to Siemiatkowski. The AI assistant handles questions about refunds, returns, payments, cancellations and more in 35 languages typically in less than two minutes. The previous customer service interaction time without chatbot was 11 minutes.
According to the company, the AI bot handled 75% of Klarna’s customer service chats, or around 2.3 million conversations, and achieved customer satisfaction scores comparable to those of human agents.
Related: AI is coming for your job – anyone who says otherwise is in denial. Here’s how you can embrace AI to avoid being left behind.
Klarna also reports that the chatbot could improve the company’s bottom line by $40 million this year. The launch is a step closer to Klarna’s goal of a “fully AI-powered financial assistant.”
Meanwhile, users have had mixed experiences with the chatbot, with some interrogation Klarna’s claim that it could replace 700 human support agents in a month with artificial intelligence. Gergely Orosz, author and writer of The Pragmatic Engineer, tried the chatbot and said that the AI ”recites exact documents and quickly transmits me to human support.”
“It basically acts as a filter to reach customer support,” Orosz he wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “As soon as I ask or instruct something other than a document, I’m *boom* talking to a human agent.”
Related: 5 AI Hacks You Need to Know in 2024
In May 2022, Siemiatkowski publicly posted a list of the 700 Klarna employees fired that month with their personal contact information. Klarna told Fast Company on Tuesday that the AI bot’s productivity is “in no way linked to workforce reductions.”
Klarna is reportedly discussing a potential U.S. initial public offering this year at a valuation of around $20 billion, according to Bloomberg.