GoKawiilKey Takeaways Klarna CMO David Sandström created an AI avatar of himself so employees could “vent” during a period of budget cuts.
Instead of sending Sandström angry Slack messages, employees could call a number to talk to an AI voice that sounded like him.
This AI counterpart was designed to remain consistently agreeable — quick to apologize and assume responsibility.
David Sandström, chief marketing officer at “buy now, pay later” fintech startup Klarna, recently had to navigate budget cuts. Instead of holding a meeting with staff to hear their frustrations, he created an AI clone of himself that employees could call to unload their concerns.
During a recent ElevenLabs webinar, Sandström said he used his AI-generated double as a kind of internal “venting machine” that listened to workers patiently. He explained that he designed his AI counterpart to remain consistently agreeable — quick to apologize and assume responsibility.
He told his team: “I believe that people are probably quite pissed with me, and I would like to give them a way of expressing that without having to send me angry Slack messages.”
Sandström assembled his AI double to cut down on complaints during meetings, telling colleagues to call the number and vent there so in-person discussions could stay focused on what comes next.
“I just didn’t want to hear the whining in the meetings anymore,” Sandström said. “So I said, call this number, get it out of the system. When we then meet, we focus on the future.”
Sandström’s AI experiment also shaped Klarna’s next move. The company built a chatbot based on CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski that lets customers call in and share feedback. The bot learned from his podcast appearances, so it sounds and responds like him.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, chief executive officer of Klarna. Photographer: Michael Nagle/Bloomberg
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