Klarna's new generative AI assistant is doing the work of 700 employees just a month after its launch, and raises serious questions about the possible future impact of AI on the global workforce, according to CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski.
The buy now, pay later fintech firm said the assistant, powered by OpenAI, has had 2.3 million conversations, representing two-thirds of Klarna's customer service chats, and is doing the equivalent work of 700 agents. full-time.
Siemiatkowski said the success of the AI assistant shows the “profound impact” AI will have on society. But the chief executive warned that this raises serious questions about how the technology could affect workers in the future.
He added that society and politicians will need to carefully consider the deployment and use of AI, adding that “considered, informed and consistent stewardship” will be critical to going through what he described as a “transformation of our societies.”
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Those partners employ 200,000 people, so in the short term the arrival of the AI assistant will only mean that those agents will work for other clients of those companies, he said.
“But in the long term, as more companies adopt these technologies, we believe that society must consider the impact,” Siemiatkowski said. “While it may have a positive impact for society as a whole, we must consider the implications for individuals.” affected.”
“We decided to share these statistics to raise awareness and encourage a proactive approach to the topic of AI. For decision makers around the world to recognize that this is not just 'in the future', but is happening right now,” he added.
Siemiatkowski's announcement raised questions about whether AI had a role to play in previous job cuts at the fintech giant. The company cut around 800 employees in a round of layoffs in 2022. Speaking with C.B.S.However, Siemiatkowski insisted there is no correlation between recent statistics and job losses.
Klarna has been an early and enthusiastic adopter of OpenAI's generative AI technologies. Last year, Siemiatkowski said his daily routine often involves focusing “solely on how AI can help us realize our vision faster.”
What does Klarna's AI assistant actually do?
Klarna's AI assistant can handle refunds, returns, payment-related issues, cancellations, disputes and invoice inaccuracies, and Klarna said new features will be added soon in the pipeline. Customers can still choose to interact with live agents if they prefer.
The fintech company said AI is on par with human agents when it comes to customer satisfaction scores and is more accurate in “resolving errands,” leading to a 25% drop in repeated queries.
Customers now resolve their errands in less than two minutes, compared to 11 minutes previously, Klarna said.
The assistant, available in the Klarna app, can communicate in more than 35 languages. Klarna said the AI tool will generate a “profit improvement” of $40 million for the company in 2024.
It's still early days for AI and it's not entirely clear what the impact on employment will be. Some have argued that employers will use generative AI to make their workers more productive.
Others argue that employers will instead use technology to replace workers entirely.
Research from Goldman Sachs in early 2023 suggested that hundreds of millions of jobs could be replaced by generative AI in the next decade, and there have already been some notable examples of major tech companies choosing to automate functions.
IBM, for example, revealed in May last year that it planned to cut nearly 8,000 employees in “back office” functions, such as human resources and sales, in a bid to reduce costs and increase automation.
A UK government report late last year suggested that between 10% and 30% of jobs in the UK are ripe for automation. But the report also says that the overall net effect on employment is still unclear and that the jobs eliminated by AI could be equivalent to the creation of new jobs.
The bigger question may be whether people who lost their jobs to automation are capable of taking on the roles that AI then creates.
