Klarna reported a 27% increase in revenue in the first half of 2024, buoyed by its aggressive use of AI, which CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said could help the BNPL giant cut its workforce in half.
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As the company prepares for its highly anticipated $20 billion IPO, Klarna posted an adjusted profit of $66 million in the first half of the year, compared to an adjusted loss of $45 million in the same period Year 2023.
In his Letter to shareholdersHailing the impact of AI, CEO Siemiatkowski revealed: “Our AI assistant now handles the work of 700 employees, reducing average resolution time from 11 minutes to just 2, while achieving the same customer satisfaction scores as human agents.”
The company reduced its workforce from 5,000 to 3,800 last year through natural attrition, and Siemiatkowski expects even more drastic reductions.
In an interview with the Financial Timeshe says: “We can not only achieve more with less, but we can achieve much more with less.” Internally, we are talking about 2,000 [employees]. We don’t want to set a specific deadline for this.”
To achieve this, the company has begun a non-engineering hiring freeze, relying on natural turnover rather than layoffs.
Klarna is also benefiting from its push into the US, where it now works with a quarter of the top 100 retailers and is increasing the country’s gross profit by 93% compared to last year.
Recently, the company has also ventured into retail banking territory, introducing an “account” where customers can store money and cashback rewards to incorporate into customers’ daily spending and savings.