Sebastian Siemiatkowski stood on the London SXSW stage, a little humbled and a lot candid.
His company, Klarna, once made waves for swapping what would have been 700 people for artificial intelligence. Yet, as he pointed out to the crowd, the story is layered.
Klarna’s workforce dropped from five and a half thousand employees to about three thousand in just two years. That move, largely powered by automation, drove down costs in customer support and pushed revenue per employee higher than before.
Yet, Siemiatkowski insisted the human touch will never vanish entirely from Klarna. He likened it to handcrafted clothes, suggesting there will always be a premium for person-to-person service. VIP customer care, he said, remains valuable no matter how smart machines become.
The Evolving Job Landscape at Klarna
Even now, tech talent sticks around, but other departments have slimmed down faster. Unexpectedly, a new breed of worker is rising within the company —people combining business intuition with coding skills. Siemiatkowski believes that as technology becomes more ingrained, these hybrid talents gain even greater importance.
He openly shared his own journey, admitting he uses AI in daily work. ChatGPT, for example, has become his tutor, helping him decode sticky bits of database jargon and Slack discussions so he joins technical conversations with confidence. This newfound skill set, he claims, has already changed the way Klarna operates, giving the company an edge he never thought possible.
But not every consequence of AI is positive. The CEO brought up how smarter technology has opened the door for more sophisticated scams, especially in countries where trust in institutions runs high. As artificial intelligence quickens the pace, societies like Sweden and Singapore bear new risks, making vigilance even more vital.
Klarna’s use of AI even led to major decisions in its software stack. Frustrated with the data spread across countless platforms, Klarna ditched services like Salesforce and Workday, scrapping roughly twelve hundred minor tools to unify information under one roof. Siemiatkowski said this consolidation was essential for Klarna’s AI ambitions, boosting efficiency and reducing hurdles for feeding data into its models.
As for the much-speculated Klarna initial public offering, he remained cagey, hinting that calm markets make the timing more attractive but offering few details.
When talk turned to broader wishes, like whether the United Kingdom should revisit its relationship with Europe, Siemiatkowski did not hesitate. If he had his way, he remarked, he would see the country rejoin the EU, a statement that brought a round of applause from the audience. Klarna boosts efficiency with AI shift
