Klarna, the buy now, pay later (BNPL) company, revealed it’s using an AI chatbot to do the job of around 700 full-time workers.
Two-thirds of the Swedish fintech’s customer service inquiries are now processed using the AI-powered chatbot.
OpenAI collaborated with Klarna to implement the assistant into its app, providing its 150 million worldwide users with fast-paced responses to their issues.
During its first month of use, the chatbot had around 2.3 million conversations and left Klarna confident the changes could lead to a US$40 million profit lift this year.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and chief executive of Klarna, said: “This AI breakthrough in customer interaction means superior experiences for our customers at better prices, more interesting challenges for our employees and better returns for our investors.”
Klarna says it won’t lead to any job cuts, noting that only last year it expanded its deal with third-party customer service providers.
The BNPL trailblazer suffered a net loss of US$241 million during 2023, improving on 2022’s loss of around US$1 billion after revenues jumped 22% to US$2.27 billion.
Last month, Siemiatkowski made his clearest indication yet that Klarna is gearing up for a debut on the US markets.
“It’s very likely that this is going to happen quite soon, but there are no official dates,” he said in a Bloomberg interview.