Almost half of the employees currently working at the “buy now, pay later” startup Klarna could be replaced by AI in the coming years.
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told the Financial Times last week that the company aims to halve its workforce within the next few years, from 3,800 people to 2,000. Instead of layoffs, the company will continue freezing her employment that started in September and not to hire replacements for people leaving the company.
“By simply not hiring, which we haven't done since September … the company is kind of getting smaller and smaller,” Siemiatkowski DECLARING. He emphasized that the average income per Klarna employee had increased by 73% from year to year.
The remaining employees will have AI to help with tasks, Siemiatkowski said.
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“Not only can we do more with less, we can do much more with less,” he told the Financial Times.
Klarna's employees were 5,000 a year ago, but the employees leaving and Powered by AI the hiring freeze has reduced the company to its current size.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski. Photo by David M. Bennett/Dave Bennett/Getty Images for Klarna
Klarna claimed in February that its AI assistant worked the equivalent of 700 full-time customer service agents. The AI assistant reduced customer inquiries to two minutes, compared to the previous average 11-minute conversation required with human agents.
Siemiatkowski wrote in a now deleted post on X in May, Klarna's internal marketing team was half the size of last year, but was producing more with AI and spending $6 million less.
of Clare second quarter earnings report for 2024 showed its third consecutive quarter of growth in the US, with revenue and operating income up 17% and 21% year-over-year, respectively.
Klarna is said to be exploring an IPO in the US at a valuation of 20 billion dollars.