Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski is so bullish on AI that the Swedish buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platform plans to chop it is workforce by 50 p.c within the subsequent few years.
Talking to the Monetary Occasions, Siemiatkowski stated that Klarna is hoping to scale its workforce down from 3,800 to 2,000 workers. The present worker depend was already lowered from 5,000 after Klarna carried out mass layoffs final 12 months. With virtually half the workforce on the firm, Siemiatkowski plans to shift customer support and advertising duties to AI. “Not only can we do more with less, but we can do much more with less,” he stated to the FT.
None of that is popping out of the blue. Siemiatkowski has been vocal concerning the cost-saving advantages of AI. Klarna applied a hiring freeze final December, with the end-goal of “shrinking” the corporate and changing sure duties with AI. In an archived submit on X that has since been deleted, Siemiatkowski acquired backlash for boasting concerning the tens of millions of {dollars} saved by automating duties like AI picture technology, implementing an AI assistant, and doing extra with half the scale of its advertising crew.
Mashable Gentle Velocity
Within the quick time period, Klarna’s strategy appears to be paying off. As reported in its Tuesday Q2 earnings name, the BNPL firm has drastically narrowed its web losses from $84 million to $980,000 when transformed from Swedish Krona to US {dollars}. However betting large on AI automation is a big gamble that may not pan out. Financial consultants in a Goldman Sachs report see “limited US economic upside from AI,” and if historical past tells us something, automation of sure providers like self-checkout kiosks and customer support can backfire and create new issues.
Klarna is not the one tech firm to chop its workforce in favor of investing in AI. In January Duolingo reduce 10 p.c of its contractors, and attributed the redundancy of staff to AI. Meta and Google have additionally laid off workers as they make investments deeper in AI.
Matters
Synthetic Intelligence
Cash
