Clarna’s sebastian siemiatkowski is all in on ai John Phillips/Getty Images for SXSW London
Sebastien Siemiatkowski, CEO of fintech giant Klarna, believes A.I. can do any human job—including his own. That conviction was on display yesterday (Aug. 14) when an A.I.-generated avatar, rather than Siemiatkowski himself, presented the company’s second-quarter earnings. It was fitting that the digital stand-in promoted A.I.’s benefits, given how deeply Klarna has integrated the technology into personal shopping, internal productivity and customer service.
“By embedding A.I. across the business, we’ve now hit a major milestone: $1 million in revenue per employee, up from $369,000 just two years ago,” said Siemiatkowski’s avatar. “Real results, real impact, really exciting.”
The Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) provider reported $823 million in sales for the April-June quarter, a 20 percent year-over-year increase, while active consumers climbed 31 percent to 111 million. However, net loss widened to $53 million from $18 million, in part due to a one-time $24 million restructuring charge.
Based in Stockholm, Sweden, Klarna has become one of Europe’s most vocal A.I. advocates. It was among the first to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT, with Siemiatkowski famously offering to serve as Sam Altman’s “favorite guinea pig.” The company says A.I. adoption has helped cut costs as it gears up for a U.S. initial public offering—originally slated for April but delayed amid market volatility tied to the Trump administration’s tariff policy.
In the U.S., Klarna’s revenue grew 38 percent year-over-year in the second quarter. It recently became Walmart’s exclusive BNPL provider for American shoppers, began offering similar options through eBay, and has ambitions to expand its image beyond short-term financing into a full-service financial platform.
A.I. is changing how fintech companies operate
A.I. now touches nearly every aspect of Klarna’s business. Besides a ChatGPT-powered shopping plugin that gives customers personalized recommendations, most of the company’s communications, marketing and legal teams use generative A.I. tools on a daily basis. Klarna also recently “launched an A.I. hotline where my avatar gathers feedback at scale,” said Siemiatkowski.
Customer service has seen the most dramatic impact. Within a month of launching its A.I. assistant in 2024, the bot handled 2.3 million conversations—representing two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats—driving an estimated $40 million in annual profit improvements. It also replaced the work of 700 human agents, leading Klarna to pause hiring and reduce headcount by 22 percent to 3,500 employees in 2024. Siemiatkowski has since restarted hiring to ensure customers can still speak to a human if they choose.
Other fintech firms are moving in the same direction. Stripe has introduced A.I. models for fraud detection, London-based Revolut plans to debut an A.I.-powered financial assistant, and Robinhood said last month that about half its code is now A.I.-generated, with nearly all its engineers using the technology.
