Fintech CEO says AI helped reduce headcount by 40%: report

(KRON) — The CEO of a Swedish financial tech company reportedly said artificial intelligence enabled the company to slash its head count by 40%. Speaking to CNBC, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, said the reduction in headcount was partially due to AI and in part due to natural attrition in the workforce.

“The truth is, the company has shrunk from about 5,000 to now almost 3,000 employees,” said Siemiatkowski, speaking to CNBC’s “Power Lunch” this week. “If you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you’ll see how we’re shrinking.”

Founded in Stockholm, Klarna has offices all over the world, including one in San Mateo. The company has been full-throated in its embrace of AI technology.

In 2023 it launched an AI assistant in partnership with ChatGPT. As of February of 2024, Klaran said AI was handling two-thirds of its customer service chats, the equivalent of 700 full-time agents.

Siemiatkowski also told CNBC that Klarna was implementing a hiring freeze.

“We have simply communicated to our employees that what we’re going to do is we’re gonna shrink, so we’re going to stop hiring,” he said. “Natural attrition in a company like ours is 15-20% per year, so we shrink naturally 15-20% by people just leaving.”

However, the company which provides buy-now, pay-later payment plans, appears to be of two minds. In a separate interview with Bloomberg last week, Siemiatkowski said the AI approach had let to “lower quality” and that it would start hiring humans again.