CEO Says He Hasn’t Hired Anyone in a Year as He Replaces Human Workers With AI

This is working a bit too well for comfort.

Gain Pain

The head of the "buy now, pay later" firm Klarna is now bragging that artificial intelligence has begun to successfully replace his human workforce.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Klarna CEO and founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that he hasn't hired any new humans in a year amid the company's push to embrace AI.

Since it started that push a year ago, the company lost about 22 percent of its headcount, bringing its total staff numbers to about 3,500 people, the Swedish-born CEO said. Most who left did so of their own volition, and were not replaced.

Siemiatowski has repeatedly claimed that he told OpenAI's Sam Altman that he wants Klarna to be the AI firm's "favorite guinea pig." With OpenAI's help, Klarna launched an AI assistant that it says can do the work of 700 humans.

Stunt Double

The fintech founder told Bloomberg that he's gotten his remaining employees on board with the AI pivot — roughly 200 of whom use AI in their work — by telling them they'll see bumps in their paychecks for any productivity gains from the technology.

"People internally at Klarna are just rallying to deploy as much efficiency AI as they can," Siemiatowski said. "We’re going to give some of the improvements that the efficiency that AI provides by increasing the pace at which the salaries of our employees increases."

Along with providing those employee incentives — which were not spelled out, so we can't really know how much of a financial benefit Klarna workers are actually seeing or what structure those bonuses may take — Siemiatowski also has used AI to reduce some of his own workload as well, albeit in a gimmicky manner.

During a recent quarterly earnings call, Klarna deployed an AI-generated version of its CEO to deliver its financial updates to its shareholders. As a video of the stunt posted on LinkedIn shows, the AI looks pretty sophisticated until it starts moving, developing that strange bubbling effect that many AI videos depicting humans speaking suffer from.

Despite the uncanniness, it's clear from Klarna's increased earnings last quarter that it's weathering the decline in headcount. That's great news for Siemiatowski — but not for his former employees, of course.

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