Klarna, a Swedish fintech giant, and one of Europe’s early adopters of artificial intelligence (AI), is rethinking its aggressive push toward automation.
CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski admitted that the company may have gone “too far” in cutting costs through AI, which risked impacting service and product quality.
“We probably over indexed a little bit on that, and then in the last six months we have been trying to course correct,” Siemiatkowski told Reuters.
In its bid to cut costs, Klarna laid off thousands of employees, dropped major vendors such as Salesforce, and adopted AI-driven solutions across multiple business functions.
The company’s AI chatbot alone reportedly handled the work of 700 employees, dramatically speeding up customer query resolution.
The company even experimented with AI-powered avatars, using a digital version of its CEO to present quarterly earnings in May, and launching an interactive AI avatar to answer customer hotline queries.
While these moves saved Klarna millions of dollars, Siemiatkowski said the company learnt that cost-cutting should not come at the expense of customer and merchant experience.
Klarna’s renewed focus is now on boosting productivity and improving product quality, rather than just maximising cost savings. Investors, Siemiatkowski noted, are more interested in growth and service quality, than short-term expense reductions.
The company has already begun hiring again, with dozens of open positions currently listed on its job portal, Reuters reported.
