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Klarna CEO Reverses Course, Rehires Human Staff After AI-driven Losses

Published on May 24, 2025

The CEO of Klarna is now pleading for humans to return after the business’s early pivot resulted in $40,000,000,000 in losses, while every other company is choosing AI rivals over actual labour.

The fintech ‘buy now, pay later’ business Klarna has taken over most of the online buying market in recent years, so even if you have never used it, you probably have heard of it.

Often referred to as the “new form of loans,” it enables consumers to buy a much wider range of goods without having to pay the entire amount upfront, something that was previously only possible for more costly purchases.

Although Klarna’s primary market has been the apparel sector, it has expanded into broader e-commerce to the point where users may now use the service to controversially pay for meal delivery.

However, Klarna’s choice to adopt an aggressive AI-driven customer service strategy and get early on the AI bandwagon is by far the most contentious decision in recent years.

According to Mint, the company revealed last year that artificial intelligence was managing the workload of over 700 human agents, made possible by a significant collaboration with OpenAI, the company that created ChatGPT.

But in a dramatic change of events, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, the CEO of Klarna, has suddenly reversed this startling decision and called for the reintroduction of human staff to the company’s customer support departments.

“As cost unfortunately seems to have been too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality,” Siemiatkowski recently explained.

The main motivation for AI replacements, according to many, is to reduce the expense of human labour. However, Klarna has found that this has not only had a negative impact on the quality of customer service but has also seriously hurt the company as a whole, with losses estimated to be around $40 billion.

Additionally, Siemiatkowski has stated that “really investing in the quality of human support is the way of the future for us,” despite the fact that the reintegration of human workers isn’t quite as perfect as some may wish.

Instead of hiring people directly, Klarna now wants to use remote “Uber-like” workers who offer on-demand services. These workers will undoubtedly not have all the perks that come with working directly for Klarna.

It has been underlined that, from a “brand” and “business” standpoint, Klarna believes that it is crucial for customers to always have the option to speak with a human, but it is still dedicated to artificial intelligence going forward, particularly in keeping with its previously mentioned OpenAI partnership.

“We wanted to be [OpenAI’s] favorite guinea pig,” remarked Siemiatkowski, adding that he still sees the human workforce reducing over time – although that won’t be an immediate change.

“I don’t see how an on-demand model with a bunch fo randos will deliver an increase in quality,” writes one comment on Reddit in response to the news. “Expecting Klarna customers/debtors to excitedly work a call center job? Let’s be for real. Imagine trusting some rando with customer PII?”

Another user breaks down what they call a “wildly dystopian business model,” that Klarna are now integrating, illustrating: “Picture sitting at your desk, and not being paid for your time, but you have to be there because once some work comes up, if you’re not there, someone else gets chosen for it.”

Whether or not you support Klarna’s new strategy for hiring human labour, it nonetheless signals a radical change that deviates from more general technological trends. For instance, Meta is apparently preparing to use AI to replace almost half of their coding effort, and even doctors are starting to worry that the technology may replace their decades of experience.

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