Klarna says its AI assistant is doing the work of 700 people after putting the brakes on hiring

• Klarna says its AI assistant is doing the equivalent work of 700 people.
• The Swedish fintech said the assistant was on par with human agents for customer satisfaction.
• Not everyone's impressed, but the assistant is another sign of the company's enthusiasm for AI.

Klarna says its AI assistant is doing "the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents."

In a blog post posted on the company's website, the fintech said its OpenAI-powered assistant had engaged in 2.3 million conversations since it went live a month ago.

The company claimed the chatbot was more accurate in "errand resolution" and on par with human agents when it came to customer satisfaction. The post also said the tech was estimated to drive a $40 million profit improvement for the company in 2024.

One user, Gergely Orosz, a software engineer and author of The Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, said he was skeptical of the news after trying out Klarna's AI assistant.

"It's … underwhelming. It recites exact docs and passes me on to human support fast," he said in a post on X.

Representatives for Klarna did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside of normal working hours.

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has long been enthusiastic about AI.

He told The Telegraph late last year that the Swedish fintech was no longer hiring new staff beyond its engineering department as the company leans into AI.

"There will be a shrinking of the company," Siemiatkowski said in December. "We're not currently hiring at all, apart from engineers."

While the Klarna chief said he did not plan to lay off more workers, he said natural attrition meant the company would shrink over time, and AI would pick up the slack from lost staffers.

Klarna previously laid off 700 employees in 2022.

The company faced backlash for the 10% workforce reduction at the time. Siemiatkowski used a pre-recorded video message to break the news to the 700 staff members affected.