Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski has announced plans to beef up its human customer service team after artificial intelligence replaced 700 workers.
The “buy now, pay later” company’s use of AI to cut jobs came after a dismal fundraising round, in which its valuation dropped to $6.7 billion. To put it in context, Klarna’s valuation peaked at $45.6 billion in 2021.
But now, Siemiatkowski has suggested that the AI job cuts have led to “lower quality” customer service and is backpedaling by vowing to hire more humans.
The executive recently announced at Klarna’s Stockholm headquarters that a new hiring pilot is underway, in which customer service workers will be “in an Uber type of setup,” per Bloomberg.
These remote workers will eventually replace “the few thousand human agents” that are outsourced by the firm.
So far, only two customer service employees from this pilot have begun work.
“I just think it’s so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want,” said Siemiatkowski, a Swedish fintech entrepreneur who co-founded the company.
The CEO reflected on Klarna’s previous shift in focus from human agents and to AI.
“As cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality,” he said.
Siemiatkowski continued: “Really investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.”
But this doesn’t mean the company won’t continue to use AI in other areas. Siemiatkowski mentioned that Klarna will use AI to improve efficiency in its software.
In the meantime, the firm hopes to recruit people from rural areas, students and others to fill the new jobs.
“We also know there are tons of Klarna users that are very passionate about our company and would enjoy working for us,” Siemiatkowski added.
