Because of AI: Payment service provider Klarna has not been hiring for a year
The Swedish company has reportedly not hired anyone for a year and has lost 22 percent of its workforce. Their work is being done by AI.
(Image: Mats Wiklund/Shutterstock.com)
The Swedish payment service provider Klarna has not hired any more people for a year and instead has AI technology doing the work of what was once hundreds of employees. Managing Director Sebastian Siemiatkowski explained this to the financial news agency Bloomberg. His company has been able to reduce the number of its employees by around 22 percent in the same period and now only has around 3,500 employees. Around 200 of these would use AI technology for their core tasks. According to him, the workforce was persuaded by promising them all a share of the potential gains as part of their salary.
AI technology does the work of hundreds of employees
Klarna has been causing a stir for months with its decisive use of AI technology. Back in February, the company declared that it was doing the work of 700 full-time employees in processing customer inquiries. In terms of customer satisfaction, the technology was on a par. The report led to a slump in the share price of the world's largest operator of call centers. The price of shares in the Teleperformance Group subsequently fell even further and has not recovered since. Klarna had stated that the technology should enable an increase in turnover of 40 million US dollars.
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Bloomberg now recalls that Siemiatkowski was represented by an AI-generated copy at the recent presentation of the business figures. The CEO explained that this would prove that the technology really could ultimately take over all jobs. Internally, employees would use as much AI technology as possible, not least because they would see some of the profits generated by it reflected in their paychecks. The payment service provider's next big target is now the US market, where Klarna wants to establish a bank. The company has also taken the first steps towards an IPO in the USA.
(mho)
