Klarna CEO says AI helped company shrink workforce by 40%

Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company has managed to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in artificial intelligence and natural attrition in its workforce. "The truth is, the company has shrunk from about 5,000 to now almost 3,000 employees," Siemiatkowski told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Wednesday. "If you go to LinkedIn and look at the jobs, you'll see how we're shrinking." The Swedish fintech provider has been outspoken about its aggressive adoption of AI tools across the company, while touting the productivity gains that have come along as a result. The company deployed an "AI-generated version" of Siemiatkowski to announce its third-quarter results last year to demonstrate that AI could automate many jobs. Klarna partnered with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023 and launched an AI customer service assistant using its technology a year later. The company said last year that AI was doing the work of 700 customer service agents. Klarna's headcount fe ... Read full article.