{"id":246797,"date":"2025-05-19T06:17:43","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T06:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/accounting\/replace-your-employees-with-ai-pay-later\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T06:17:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T06:17:43","slug":"replace-your-employees-with-ai-pay-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797","title":{"rendered":"Replace Your Employees With AI, Pay Later"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>It seems like just yesterday the ubiquitous buy-now-pay-later company Klarna was boasting about how they were happily replacing human workers with AI. Oh wait, it was. Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/05\/14\/klarna-ceo-says-ai-helped-company-shrink-workforce-by-40percent.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">said on CNBC\u2019s Power Lunch<\/a> yesterday that they\u2019re down about 2,000 people. \u201cIf you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you\u2019ll see how we\u2019re shrinking,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p>Not one to limit tech experiments to the geese but spare the gander, Klarna used an AI version of Siemiatkowski in a Q3 earnings video last year:Turns <\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/embed\/feed\/update\/urn:li:ugcPost:7266800944430940160?collapsed=1\" height=\"551\" width=\"504\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\" title=\"Embedded post\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>UNCANNY. Uncanny as in unsettling, not as in resemblance.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the AI bragging just yesterday, he had something different to say last week. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-05-08\/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Reports <em>Bloomberg<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Klarna Group Plc\u2019s chief executive says his pursuit of cost-cutting in customer service, fueled by advancements in artificial intelligence, has gone too far.<\/p>\n<p>To that end, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, 43, is plotting a rare recruitment drive so the buy-now-pay-later company\u2019s customers will always have the option of speaking to a real person, in a sign the Swedish fintech\u2019s commitment to AI has its limits.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the company\u2019s headquarters in Stockholm, co-founder Siemiatkowski said the firm is piloting a new cohort of employees \u201cin an Uber type of setup\u201d where they can log in and work remotely, with a view to eventually replacing \u201cthe few thousand human agents\u201d that Klarna currently outsources.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>They\u2019re cheap overseas labor, aren\u2019t they?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom a brand perspective, a company perspective,\u201d Siemiatkowski said, \u201cI just think it\u2019s so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want.\u201d See, customers weren\u2019t enjoying the AI chatbots as much as Klarna management was enjoying the salary savings.<\/p>\n<p>Wrote <em>Gizmodo<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Klarna claimed that AI chatbots were handling two-thirds of customer service conversations within their first month of deployment and went on to claim that AI was doing the work of 700 customer service agents. The problem is that it\u2019s really doing the work of 700 really bad agents, and that quality took a toll. \u201cAs cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality,\u201d Siemiatkowski said. \u201cReally investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Before you get too excited about this reversal, know that this \u201crecruitment drive\u201d <em>Bloomberg<\/em> mentioned currently consists of two people. \u201cThe ambition is to tap into candidates such as students or rural populations,\u201d said <em>Bloomberg<\/em> of Klarna\u2019s plans going forward. That\u2019s code for people who you can pay less than older people with years of experience.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe also know there are tons of Klarna users that are very passionate about our company and would enjoy working for us,\u201d he added. Also code for a company being cheap, nice.<\/p>\n<p>Klarna was hoping for a big IPO this year but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/livecoverage\/stock-market-tariffs-trade-war-04-04-2025\/card\/exclusive-klarna-pauses-planned-ipo-after-trump-tariff-turmoil-NMXYuKXzW6Xv4ao3CSxr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">will be holding off for now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Klarna Slows AI-Driven Job Cuts With Call for Real People<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-05-08\/klarna-turns-from-ai-to-real-person-customer-service\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bloomberg<\/a>]<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It seems like just yesterday the ubiquitous buy-now-pay-later company Klarna was boasting about how they were happily replacing human workers with AI. Oh wait, it was. Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said on CNBC\u2019s Power Lunch yesterday that they\u2019re down about 2,000 people. \u201cIf you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you\u2019ll see [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11759],"tags":[11165,13084,11416,30059,73623,11007,90372,1698,90373,14901],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-246797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accounting","tag-ai","tag-customer-service","tag-employees","tag-layoffs","tag-oops","tag-pay","tag-people-are-our-most-important-asset","tag-replace","tag-robot-takeover","tag-startups"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Replace Your Employees With AI, Pay Later - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Replace Your Employees With AI, Pay Later - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It seems like just yesterday the ubiquitous buy-now-pay-later company Klarna was boasting about how they were happily replacing human workers with AI. 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Co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said on CNBC\u2019s Power Lunch yesterday that they\u2019re down about 2,000 people. \u201cIf you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you\u2019ll see [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-05-19T06:17:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Klarna-AI-customer-service.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"853\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#\/schema\/person\/b85e3c3dc0e1daea076524dc8810c371\"},\"headline\":\"Replace Your Employees With AI, Pay Later\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-05-19T06:17:43+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797\"},\"wordCount\":512,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/Klarna-AI-customer-service.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"AI\",\"customer service\",\"Employees\",\"Layoffs\",\"Oops\",\"pay\",\"People are our most important asset\",\"Replace\",\"robot takeover\",\"Startups\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Accounting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=246797\",\"name\":\"Replace Your Employees With AI, Pay Later - 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