Verified
Klarna
Embedded- Payments and banking
- 2,831 employees (Dec 2025)
- AI assistant on OpenAI
- 80% of chats by AI (2025)
- $1.24M revenue per employee
Klarna deploys AI across customer service, marketing, engineering and internal work: its OpenAI-based assistant handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025, and staff use ChatGPT Enterprise, the Kiki knowledge assistant and an AI coding copilot. Klarna links the fall in full-time staff from 5,527 in 2022 to 2,831 in 2025 to AI, while revenue per employee rose to about $1.24 million. Since May 2025 Klarna has rebuilt a human service tier after CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said cost had weighed too heavily and quality suffered.
klarna.comTheir approach to AI
- The platform
- Klarna built its customer service assistant (Feb 2024) and Kiki, its internal knowledge assistant (Jun 2023), on OpenAI models, and was among the first companies to adopt ChatGPT Enterprise for staff in Aug 2023.
- The models
- OpenAI models run Klarna's assistant and Kiki; Klarna also uses Google's Veo 2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash Image for marketing imagery (Oct 2025) and ElevenLabs' platform for its U.S. phone agent (Feb 2026).
- The reach
- Klarna said 96% of its employees used generative AI daily as of Aug 31, 2024, based on OpenAI and internal tool data, and 80% of its engineers and data scientists used an AI coding copilot by Jun 2025.
- The catch
- Klarna rebuilt a human customer service tier from May 2025 after Sebastian Siemiatkowski said cost had dominated its AI customer service push and lowered quality, and Klarna does not separate AI's share of its revenue per employee gains from attrition and growth.
Snapshot
- Technology spend
- $486M (2025)
- Technology and product development expense, up 10%; no separate AI budget disclosed
- AI/ML headcount
- Not disclosed
- Over 1,500 engineering and data science positions, 53% of staff (Dec 2025)
- Platform
- Built on OpenAI, plus ChatGPT Enterprise
- AI assistant (Feb 2024) and Kiki (Jun 2023) built in-house
- Models
- OpenAI; Google and ElevenLabs for media and voice
- Google Veo 2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Oct 2025); ElevenLabs voice agent (Feb 2026)
- Reach
- 96% daily generative AI use
- Aug 31, 2024; Kiki used by 85% of staff in May 2024
- AI in customer service
- 80% of chats (2025)
- Human agents kept as a second tier since May 2025
Key findings
Klarna's AI assistant, built with OpenAI and launched in Feb 2024, handled 80% of Klarna's customer service chats in 2025 and saved about $59 million that year by Klarna's estimate, the work of over 850 full-time agents, according to its 2025 Form 20-F filed on Feb 26, 2026.
Klarna had 2,831 full-time employees at the end of 2025, down 49% from 5,527 at the end of 2022, a fall Klarna attributes to a decision to run with fewer people using AI; revenue per employee rose from about $344,000 to about $1.24 million over the same period, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski expects fewer than 2,000 staff by 2030 (Feb 2026).
Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg in May 2025 that cost had been too dominant a factor in Klarna's AI customer service push and that quality suffered, and Klarna began recruiting human agents in an Uber-style setup, which Siemiatkowski said in Feb 2026 draws on Klarna's own customers, while keeping the AI assistant as the first line.
Klarna said 96% of its employees used generative AI daily as of Aug 31, 2024, through tools that include ChatGPT Enterprise, which Klarna adopted as one of the first companies in Aug 2023, and Kiki, an internal knowledge assistant on OpenAI models that 85% of staff used in May 2024.
Klarna has no disclosed chief AI officer: Sebastian Siemiatkowski sets and reports the AI program, COO Camilla Giesecke left on Apr 1, 2026 with no successor announced, and CFO Niclas Neglén and CMO David Sandström leave in early 2027, Neglén to become Adyen's CFO on Feb 1, 2027, subject to approvals.
Where Klarna sits
- Stage
- Embedded
Klarna sits at Embedded: 96% of its employees used generative AI daily by Aug 2024, its OpenAI-based assistant handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025, hiring and roles have been rebuilt around AI since a Dec 2023 freeze on non-engineering hires, and its 2025 Form 20-F puts a dollar figure on the effect, about $59 million of customer service savings in 2025. Klarna's case has limits: the latest adoption figure dates from Aug 2024, Klarna had to rebuild a human service tier after quality fell, and it does not separate AI's share of the rise in revenue per employee from attrition and revenue growth.
How the stages are defined - Ownership
- CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski; no chief AI officer disclosed
- Platform
- Hybrid: Assistant and Kiki built in-house on OpenAI; ChatGPT Enterprise bought
- Models
- OpenAI, plus Google media models and ElevenLabs voice
- Hosting
- AWS as primary cloud; Google Cloud trains fraud models; generative AI runs through OpenAI and ElevenLabs services
- Reach
- 96% used generative AI daily (Aug 2024)
How they deploy
AI first in customer service, humans as a premium tier
Klarna launched its OpenAI-powered assistant in Feb 2024 and said that in its first month the assistant handled 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna's customer service chats. Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in Jun 2026 that the work it took over had been done by outsourced agents and that no one lost a job. After Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg in May 2025 that cost had weighed too heavily and quality suffered, Klarna described a dual-track model in its 2025 Form 20-F: AI handles most chats and every customer can still reach a person. Siemiatkowski said in Jun 2026 that human support will become a premium service, with agents paid more and given better tools.
Shrink through attrition
Klarna stopped hiring for everything except engineering in Dec 2023, with Sebastian Siemiatkowski citing tools such as ChatGPT, and has let the workforce shrink as people leave. Siemiatkowski said in Feb 2026 that he expects Klarna to fall from about 3,000 people to fewer than 2,000 by 2030 through natural attrition of about 20% a year, without layoffs. Klarna says it shares the gain with staff: compensation per employee rose from about $115,000 in 2022 to about $188,000 in 2025 while total staff costs fell from $635 million to $531 million (Feb 2026 investor presentation).
Fewer systems, one data model
Klarna cut its software vendors and in 2024 moved organizational data from thousands of SaaS apps into graph databases, using Neo4j among other tools, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in Mar 2025 that Klarna did not replace SaaS with an LLM. Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F says it reduced or canceled contracts with over 1,700 suppliers between 2022 and 2025 following its AI adoption and standardization. Siemiatkowski said in Jun 2026 that keeping customer data in fewer systems makes it easier for AI and staff to get the context they need.
Builders over specialists
Klarna hired mainly engineers in the first two years of its AI push, but Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in Feb 2026 that the preference has flipped toward business staff who can build their own tools with AI, and he urged leaders to download Cursor, an AI code editor. Siemiatkowski said in Jun 2026 that AI-written code had been on par with human engineers' work since Nov 2025, though it still needs review.
Inside other companies' AI shopping tools
Klarna puts its products and payments inside AI assistants run by others: Klarna backed Google's Universal Commerce Protocol for agent-driven shopping in Feb 2026, launched a Klarna Shopping Search app in ChatGPT in May 2026 that draws on more than 100 million products through Klarna's Product Search MCP server, and said in May 2026 that its payment options are coming to Google Search and the Gemini app through Google Pay in the U.S.
- Deployment model
- Klarna runs AI on what it calls a single AI-enabled, cloud-native technology platform that serves every market, with product development centralized (2025 Form 20-F). CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski sets the direction and reports the results; Klarna has not named a team or an executive below him that owns AI, and its technology officers are CTO Yaron Shaer and Chief Product and Design Officer David Fock. Business teams such as marketing, legal and communications use ChatGPT Enterprise and Kiki directly. In customer service, the AI assistant is the first line in chat, a voice agent built on ElevenLabs is the first point of contact for U.S. phone support, and human agents remain available to any customer who wants one.
- Model providers
- OpenAI is Klarna's main model provider. Klarna built Kiki on OpenAI's large language models in Jun 2023, adopted ChatGPT Enterprise as one of the first companies in Aug 2023 and launched its OpenAI-powered customer service assistant in Feb 2024, which LangChain said in Feb 2025 is built on its LangGraph framework and tested with LangSmith. Klarna uses Google's Veo 2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash Image to build lookbooks and refine product images (Oct 2025), ElevenLabs' ElevenAgents platform for its U.S. voice agent (Feb 2026), and an AI coding copilot it has not named. A slide in Klarna's Nov 2025 investor presentation credited a market-size estimate to McKinsey and Anthropic's Claude, noting that Claude was significantly cheaper. Klarna has not said which model versions run in production or whether it routes work between providers.
- Data and infrastructure
- Klarna names Amazon Web Services as its primary third-party cloud infrastructure provider and lists AWS among suppliers that are the sole source or one of a few sources of their services (2025 Form 20-F). Klarna's platform makes machine learning decisions typically in under one second and ran over 80,000 deployments a month in 2025. Klarna uses Google Cloud's AI hardware to train and deploy graph neural networks that look for fraud and money-laundering patterns across users, transactions and devices (Oct 2025). Klarna moved organizational data from thousands of SaaS apps into graph databases in 2024, and Neo4j says Kiki answers staff questions from that knowledge graph. Klarna has not disclosed where the OpenAI models behind its assistant run, and Klarna does not use generative AI in credit underwriting.
Platforms and internal tools
Klarna AI assistantFeb 2024
The Klarna AI assistant is an in-app chatbot built with OpenAI that handles customer service, refunds and returns around the clock in 23 markets and more than 35 languages. Klarna says AI-handled chats match human agents on customer satisfaction, cut repeat inquiries by 25% and resolved issues in about two minutes against 12 for human agents, and every customer can still ask for a person.
- Users
- 80% of customer service chats in 2025; 31 million conversations since launch
- Models
- OpenAI, on LangChain's LangGraph and LangSmith
KikiJun 2023
Kiki is Klarna's internal knowledge chatbot, which answers employees' questions from information spread across internal systems, typically in one to five seconds. Kiki is built on OpenAI's large language models, had answered more than 250,000 questions, about 2,000 a day, by May 2024, and runs over a knowledge graph built on Neo4j, according to Neo4j.
- Users
- 85% of employees (May 2024)
- Models
- OpenAI
ChatGPT EnterpriseAug 2023
Klarna was among the first companies to adopt OpenAI's ChatGPT Enterprise, when about 2,500 of its roughly 5,000 employees had access. Klarna's lawyers use ChatGPT Enterprise to write first drafts of common contracts, and its communications team uses a ChatGPT-based tool to judge whether press coverage of Klarna is positive or negative (May 2024).
- Models
- OpenAI
AI coding copilotBy Jun 2025
Klarna's engineers and data scientists connect their work software to an AI copilot that writes and reviews code; Klarna has not named the product. Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in Jun 2026 that AI-written code had been on par with human engineers' work since Nov 2025, though it still needs review.
- Users
- 80% of engineers and data scientists (Jun 2025)
Voice agent on ElevenAgentsBy Feb 2026
Klarna built a voice AI agent on ElevenLabs' ElevenAgents platform that is the first point of contact for phone support for Klarna's 35 million U.S. customers, with a worldwide rollout planned, according to ElevenLabs (Feb 2026).
- Models
- ElevenLabs
Klarna Shopping Search in ChatGPTMay 2026
Klarna Shopping Search is an app inside ChatGPT that shows products with current prices, availability and offers from many merchants, drawing on more than 100 million products and 400 million merchant listings in 13 markets through Klarna's Product Search MCP server, then sends shoppers to the merchant's site to buy.
Risk engine and fraud models
Klarna's in-house risk engine checks more than 100 data points on each purchase and uses a class of machine learning models built to detect credit abuse and digital fraud; Klarna's real-time underwriting also uses machine learning, without generative AI. Since Oct 2025 Klarna has used Google Cloud's AI hardware to train and deploy graph neural networks for fraud and anti-money-laundering detection.
Vendors and partners
OpenAI2023
Model provider behind the AI assistant and Kiki; ChatGPT Enterprise for staff · Klarna adopted ChatGPT Enterprise in Aug 2023 and launched its OpenAI-powered assistant in Feb 2024; Klarna Shopping Search has run inside ChatGPT since May 2026.
Amazon Web Services
Primary third-party cloud infrastructure provider · Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F lists AWS among suppliers that are the sole source or one of a few sources of the services they provide.
Google and Google CloudOct 2025 (AI partnership)
Generative media models for marketing, AI hardware for fraud models, Google Pay distribution · Klarna uses Veo 2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash Image for lookbooks and personalized campaigns, backed Google's Universal Commerce Protocol in Feb 2026 and said in May 2026 that its payments are coming to Google Search and the Gemini app.
ElevenLabsBy Feb 2026
Voice agent platform for U.S. phone support · ElevenLabs co-founder and CEO Mati Staniszewski has been a Klarna director since May 2025.
LangChainBy Feb 2025
LangGraph and LangSmith tooling for the AI assistant · LangChain's Feb 2025 case study says the assistant routes requests between specialized tasks on LangGraph and is tested with LangSmith.
Neo4j2024
Graph database behind Klarna's internal knowledge graph · Sebastian Siemiatkowski named Neo4j in Mar 2025 as part of the stack Klarna used to bring its data together, and Neo4j says Kiki runs on that graph.
Leadership
AI, data and platform leaders
Executives
Board
AI org map
CEO-led AI program on one central technology platform; no dedicated AI office disclosed
Klarna has not published an AI organization or named a chief AI officer. Sebastian Siemiatkowski announces and reports Klarna's AI results, Yaron Shaer is CTO and David Fock is Chief Product and Design Officer on what Klarna calls a single AI-enabled platform with centralized product development. Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F also listed a COO, CFO, CMO and Chief Commercial Officer as executive officers; COO Camilla Giesecke left on Apr 1, 2026, and Klarna has not announced a successor.
Klarna does not disclose an AI or machine learning headcount. Klarna had over 1,500 engineering and data science positions at Dec 31, 2025, about 53% of its 2,831 full-time employees, after a hiring freeze from Dec 2023 that kept recruiting open mainly for engineers. Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in Feb 2026 that Klarna's hiring preference has since moved toward business staff who can build with AI, and Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F describes AI upskilling programs across the company.
Reporting lines
Chief Executive Officer
Technology and engineering
Yaron Shaer, CTO
Over 1,500 engineering and data science positions, 53% of staff (Dec 2025); the line to the CEO is inferred from the executive officer list, not published
Product and design
David Fock, Chief Product and Design Officer
Finance
Niclas Neglén, CFO
Leaving in early 2027; search for a New York-based CFO under way (Aug 2026)
Commercial
David Sykes, President and Chief Commercial Officer
Merchant partnerships and Klarna's apps and payments inside ChatGPT and Google
Operations and customer service
AI assistant first, human agents behind it; led by COO Camilla Giesecke until Apr 1, 2026, successor not announced
Klarna has not published reporting lines for its executive officers; the lines to the CEO are inferred from the executive officer list in the 2025 Form 20-F. Klarna's Oct 28, 2026 release calls David Sykes President and Chief Commercial Officer, while its May 2026 releases still called him Chief Commercial Officer.
Where the AI workforce sits
Engineering and data science
Over 1,500 positions at Dec 31, 2025, per the 2025 Form 20-F; Klarna does not break out how many work on AI or machine learning.
~53%All other functions
Estimate by subtraction: commercial, marketing, operations, customer service, risk and corporate staff, many of whom use ChatGPT Enterprise and Kiki in daily work.
~47%
Named people
Use cases
Klarna has not published a count of its AI use cases; its filings and releases describe generative AI in production in customer service, marketing, engineering, legal and internal knowledge work, and machine learning in fraud, anti-money-laundering screening and credit underwriting. Klarna has put a dollar return on the customer service assistant, AI-powered marketing and an engineering tool that classifies chat logs. At the firm level, Klarna credits AI adoption, including fewer outside suppliers and an AI coding copilot, with raising revenue per employee from about $344,000 in 2022 to about $1.24 million in 2025 and nearly $1.4 million in Q1 2026, without separating AI's share from attrition and revenue growth.
| Use case | Area | Status | ROI |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI assistant for customer chats Klarna's OpenAI-based assistant answers customer questions and handles refunds and returns in the Klarna app in 23 markets and more than 35 languages; it handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025, and customers can still ask for a human agent. | Customer service | In production | About $59 million in cost savings in 2025, the work of over 850 full-time agents (Feb 2026) |
| Voice agent for U.S. phone support A voice AI agent built on ElevenLabs' ElevenAgents platform is the first point of contact for phone support for Klarna's 35 million U.S. customers, with a worldwide rollout planned. | Customer service | In production | |
| Credit decision explanations for agents An AI chat tool explains credit denial decisions to Klarna's customer support agents so they can explain them to consumers; staff used it more than 987,000 times from Apr 2023 to Oct 2024. | Customer service | In production | |
| AI-made marketing content Klarna's marketing team uses generative AI for images, copy and campaigns and has cut spending on outside translation, production, CRM and social agencies; since Oct 2025 it has used Google's Veo 2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash Image to build lookbooks and refine a library of more than 200 million images. | Marketing | In production | $10 million saved in 2024 from AI-powered marketing, by Klarna's estimate (Feb 2026)Source |
| Chat log classification Klarna's engineers use an AI tool that organizes documents and sorts more than one million customer chat conversations a month by root cause, which was 96% accurate in Klarna's Aug 2024 tests. | Engineering | In production | About $4.9 million in cost savings in the 12 months to Jun 2025 (Sep 2025) |
| AI coding copilot Klarna's engineers and data scientists use an AI copilot that writes and reviews code; 80% had connected it to their work software by Jun 2025. | Engineering | In production | |
| Kiki internal knowledge assistant Kiki answers employees' questions from information spread across Klarna's internal systems; 85% of employees used it in May 2024, when it handled about 2,000 questions a day. | Firmwide | In production | |
| ChatGPT Enterprise for staff Klarna gives staff ChatGPT Enterprise, which it adopted as one of the first companies in Aug 2023; its communications team uses a ChatGPT-based tool to judge whether press coverage of Klarna is positive or negative. | Firmwide | In production | |
| Contract drafting and document review Klarna's lawyers use ChatGPT Enterprise to produce first drafts of common contracts (May 2024), and its legal teams use AI to speed up document review (2025 Form 20-F). | Legal | In production | |
| Supplier and software consolidation Klarna reduced or canceled contracts with over 1,700 suppliers between 2022 and 2025 following its AI adoption and standardization, and moved data from thousands of SaaS apps into its own graph databases in 2024. | Corporate functions | In production | |
| Fraud and anti-money-laundering detection Klarna's in-house risk engine checks more than 100 data points per purchase with machine learning models built to detect credit abuse and digital fraud, and since Oct 2025 Klarna has trained graph neural networks on Google Cloud to find fraud and money-laundering patterns. | Risk | In production | |
| Credit underwriting Klarna underwrites each purchase in real time with machine learning models, which Klarna estimated predicted default more than twice as well as the VantageScore benchmark in the U.S. in Dec 2024; Klarna does not use generative AI in underwriting. | Risk | In production | |
| AI shopping assistant and personalized feeds The Klarna app shows AI-personalized shopping feeds and offers an AI shopping assistant that helps merchants recommend products, which Klarna says raises merchant conversion. | Consumer app | In production | |
| Klarna Shopping Search in ChatGPT Klarna Shopping Search lets ChatGPT users search more than 100 million products with live prices and offers in 13 markets, with organic results and labeled sponsored placements. | Commerce | In production | |
| Klarna payments in Google Search and Gemini Klarna's pay-in-four and financing options are coming to Google's Gemini app and Google Search, including AI Mode, through Google Pay in the U.S., built on Google's Universal Commerce Protocol. | Commerce | Announced |
Adoption
Klarna spread generative AI through its workforce in about a year: Kiki launched in Jun 2023, ChatGPT Enterprise arrived in Aug 2023, when about 2,500 of Klarna's roughly 5,000 employees had access and Sebastian Siemiatkowski said only half of staff used it daily, and 87% of employees used generative AI daily by May 2024. Klarna's IPO prospectus and 2025 Form 20-F put daily use at 96% as of Aug 31, 2024, based on OpenAI and internal tool data, and the prospectus says 80% of engineers and data scientists used an AI coding copilot by Jun 2025. Customer-facing AI followed the same curve: Klarna's assistant handled two-thirds of chats in its first month in Feb 2024, 69% in the 12 months to Jun 2025 and 80% in full year 2025.
By the numbers
Rollout, first pilot to today
Jun 2023
Klarna launched Kiki, an internal knowledge assistant built on OpenAI's large language models.
Aug 2023
Klarna was among the first companies to adopt ChatGPT Enterprise, when about 2,500 of its roughly 5,000 employees had access.
Dec 2023
Sebastian Siemiatkowski told The Telegraph that Klarna had stopped hiring except for engineers, citing AI tools such as ChatGPT, and would shrink through attrition.
Feb 2024
Klarna launched its OpenAI-powered assistant and said it handled 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of its customer service chats, in its first month.
May 2024
Klarna said 87% of its employees used generative AI daily and 85% used Kiki, with the highest adoption in communications, marketing and legal.
Aug 2024
Klarna's workforce had fallen to about 3,800 from a peak of about 5,000, and Sebastian Siemiatkowski said Klarna spoke internally of about 2,000 employees, without a deadline.
May 2025
Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg that Klarna's cost cutting in customer service had gone too far, and Klarna began recruiting human agents in an Uber-style remote setup.
Sep 2025
Klarna listed on the New York Stock Exchange with a prospectus describing AI across customer service, engineering, legal and marketing.
Oct 2025
Klarna and Google Cloud announced an AI partnership covering generative media for marketing and graph neural networks for fraud detection.
Feb 2026
A voice AI agent built on ElevenLabs became the first point of contact for Klarna's U.S. phone support.
May 2026
Klarna launched its Shopping Search app inside ChatGPT, built on its Product Search MCP server.
Economics & controls
Spend and ROI
Technology spending
Klarna does not disclose an AI budget. Klarna's technology and product development expense was $486 million in 2025, up 10% from $444 million in 2024, driven by higher cloud computing costs, share-based compensation and consulting, according to its 2025 Form 20-F. Klarna raised technology and product development spending 44% year over year in Q4 2025 as it invested in engineering capacity and core platform capabilities.
What AI itself costs
Klarna has not published what it pays OpenAI, Google Cloud, ElevenLabs or other AI vendors, or what share of its cloud bill goes to AI workloads. Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F names cloud computing as a main driver of the 10% rise in technology costs in 2025 without breaking out AI.
Reported ROI
Klarna credits AI adoption, including fewer outside suppliers and an AI coding copilot, with raising revenue per employee from about $344,000 in 2022 to about $1.24 million in 2025, and reported nearly $1.4 million in Q1 2026. Klarna's Q4 2025 release said revenue grew 104% from Q4 2022 while operating expenses fell 8%, which Klarna credits to AI-enabled productivity and cost discipline. Klarna estimates its AI assistant's savings rose from about $39 million in 2024 to about $59 million in 2025, but Klarna does not separate AI's share of the revenue per employee gain from attrition and revenue growth.
Headcount and pay
Klarna's full-time workforce fell from 5,527 at the end of 2022 to 4,352 in 2023, 3,422 in 2024 and 2,831 in 2025, which Klarna attributes to a decision to cut headcount and run more efficiently with AI, and Klarna expects the number to keep falling. Total staff costs fell from $635 million in 2022 to $531 million in 2025 while compensation per employee rose from about $115,000 to about $188,000 (Feb 2026 investor presentation). Press coverage of Sebastian Siemiatkowski's interviews cites a fall from about 7,000 people to under 3,000, while Klarna's filings count full-time employees, 5,527 at the end of 2022.
Productivity markers
Klarna said in May 2025 that customer service cost per transaction fell 40%, from $0.32 in Q1 2023 to $0.19 in Q1 2025, with AI-driven efficiency gains a key enabler, and its IPO prospectus attributed lower customer service costs per transaction in the first half of 2025 to continued improvements to the AI assistant. Klarna's customer service and operations expense, which fell 15% in 2024, rose 2% in 2025 while volumes grew 32%. Klarna's Q1 2025 release also said headcount fell 39% in two years while technology and product staff rose from 36% to 52% of employees.
Operating costs in 2026
Klarna's non-transaction operating expenses rose 3% year over year in Q1 2026 and 16% in Q2 2026, to $419 million, as Klarna invested ahead of peak season and in U.S. marketing, and Klarna credits AI-enabled productivity gains and cost discipline with keeping cost growth below revenue growth.
Governance and risk
AI inside operational risk
Klarna governs AI under its operational risk framework, which includes policies on the use and development of AI, human involvement in training and monitoring AI tools, and AI development rules aligned with secure development guidelines, according to its 2025 Form 20-F. Klarna runs an annual risk assessment of business-critical products, and major changes go through a new product approval process.
No generative AI in credit decisions
Klarna uses established machine learning in credit underwriting but does not use generative AI there, its 2025 Form 20-F says. Klarna flags that its machine learning risk scoring model may fall under the EU AI Act, in force since Aug 1, 2024, and that GDPR rules on automated decision-making may affect its use of generative AI in customer support and machine learning in fraud and anti-money-laundering screening.
A human option in customer service
Klarna offers every customer the option of a human agent alongside the AI assistant, which its 2025 Form 20-F calls a dual-track approach. Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in Jun 2026 that customers who feel a decision is unfair should be able to reach a person, and a Klarna spokesperson said in May 2025 that AI handles the easy questions while human experts handle the harder moments.
Anti-money-laundering models
Sweden's Financial Supervisory Authority fined Klarna SEK 500 million, about $47 million, in Dec 2024 after finding its anti-money-laundering processes, including model risk management, insufficient. Klarna responded by adding data to its risk assessments and setting up a validation routine for its anti-money-laundering models, according to its 2025 Form 20-F.
Generative AI risk disclosures
Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F warns that generative AI, including its customer service chatbot, can produce inaccurate, biased or misleading output that may be hard to detect, that Klarna may lack rights to data its AI tools use, and that content Klarna creates with AI may not be protected by copyright.
Recent signals
Sep 22, 2026
Adyen named Klarna CFO Niclas Neglén its next CFO from Feb 1, 2027, subject to approval, while Klarna searches for a New York-based successor.
Aug 18, 2026
Klarna said CFO Niclas Neglén and CMO David Sandström will leave in early 2027 and that it is searching for a New York-based CFO.
Aug 18, 2026
Klarna's Q2 2026 results credited AI-enabled productivity gains as operating expenses grew 16% against 42% growth in transaction margin dollars.
Jun 9, 2026
Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Semafor that Klarna had about 2,700 employees, that AI-written code had matched human engineers' work since Nov 2025, and that human customer support will become a premium service.
May 20, 2026
Klarna launched its Shopping Search app in ChatGPT, drawing on more than 100 million products through its Product Search MCP server.
May 14, 2026
Klarna reported revenue per employee of nearly $1.4 million in Q1 2026, four times the 2022 level, with non-transaction operating expenses up 3% year over year.
May 12, 2026
Klarna said its payment options are coming to Google Search, including AI Mode, and the Gemini app through Google Pay in the U.S.
Apr 1, 2026
Chief Operating Officer Camilla Giesecke left Klarna after about nine years; Klarna has not announced a successor.
Feb 26, 2026
Klarna's 2025 Form 20-F reported that its AI assistant handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025 and saved about $59 million, and that full-time employees fell to 2,831.
Feb 19, 2026
Klarna's Q4 2025 results put revenue per employee at $1.24 million, 3.6 times the 2022 level, with headcount down 49% and compensation per employee rising.
Feb 17, 2026
Sebastian Siemiatkowski said on the 20VC podcast that he expects Klarna to shrink from about 3,000 to fewer than 2,000 employees by 2030 through attrition, not layoffs.
Feb 11, 2026
ElevenLabs said Klarna's voice AI agent, built on its ElevenAgents platform, is the first point of contact for phone support for Klarna's 35 million U.S. customers.
Feb 10, 2026
Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Charter's Leading with AI Summit that Klarna's hiring preference has shifted from engineers toward business staff who can build with AI.
Feb 2, 2026
Klarna backed Google's Universal Commerce Protocol for AI agent shopping, building on its support for Google's Agent Payments Protocol.
Nov 18, 2025
Klarna's first results as a listed company said its AI assistant did the work of 853 full-time agents and delivered $58 million of annualized savings, with headcount down 47% since 2022 to 2,907.
Quick answers
- How does Klarna deploy AI?
- Klarna deploys AI across customer service, marketing, engineering and internal work: its OpenAI-based assistant handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025, and staff use ChatGPT Enterprise, the Kiki knowledge assistant and an AI coding copilot. Klarna links the fall in full-time staff from 5,527 in 2022 to 2,831 in 2025 to AI, while revenue per employee rose to about $1.24 million. Since May 2025 Klarna has rebuilt a human service tier after CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said cost had weighed too heavily and quality suffered.
- What does Klarna use AI for?
- Klarna has not published a count of its AI use cases; its filings and releases describe generative AI in production in customer service, marketing, engineering, legal and internal knowledge work, and machine learning in fraud, anti-money-laundering screening and credit underwriting. Klarna has put a dollar return on the customer service assistant, AI-powered marketing and an engineering tool that classifies chat logs. At the firm level, Klarna credits AI adoption, including fewer outside suppliers and an AI coding copilot, with raising revenue per employee from about $344,000 in 2022 to about $1.24 million in 2025 and nearly $1.4 million in Q1 2026, without separating AI's share from attrition and revenue growth.
- Who leads AI at Klarna?
- AI at Klarna is led by Yaron Shaer (Chief Technology Officer). Ownership of AI on the org chart: CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski; no chief AI officer disclosed.
- What AI platform does Klarna use?
- Klarna built its customer service assistant (Feb 2024) and Kiki, its internal knowledge assistant (Jun 2023), on OpenAI models, and was among the first companies to adopt ChatGPT Enterprise for staff in Aug 2023.
- Which AI models does Klarna use?
- OpenAI models run Klarna's assistant and Kiki; Klarna also uses Google's Veo 2 and Gemini 2.5 Flash Image for marketing imagery (Oct 2025) and ElevenLabs' platform for its U.S. phone agent (Feb 2026).
- How many Klarna employees use AI?
- Klarna said 96% of its employees used generative AI daily as of Aug 31, 2024, based on OpenAI and internal tool data, and 80% of its engineers and data scientists used an AI coding copilot by Jun 2025.
- How far has AI spread at Klarna?
- Klarna sits at Embedded: 96% of its employees used generative AI daily by Aug 2024, its OpenAI-based assistant handled 80% of customer service chats in 2025, hiring and roles have been rebuilt around AI since a Dec 2023 freeze on non-engineering hires, and its 2025 Form 20-F puts a dollar figure on the effect, about $59 million of customer service savings in 2025. Klarna's case has limits: the latest adoption figure dates from Aug 2024, Klarna had to rebuild a human service tier after quality fell, and it does not separate AI's share of the rise in revenue per employee from attrition and revenue growth.
Open questions
- Who owns AI at Klarna below Sebastian Siemiatkowski, given that Klarna has not named a chief AI officer or an AI team, and who has run operations and customer service since COO Camilla Giesecke left on Apr 1, 2026?
- How much does Klarna spend on AI, including OpenAI, Google Cloud and ElevenLabs, and where do the OpenAI models behind its assistant run?
- How many human agents, whether employees, outsourced staff or customers working gig shifts, now work behind Klarna's AI assistant, and does the estimate of about $59 million in 2025 savings net out their cost?
- What share of Klarna's employees use generative AI each week today, given that the latest figure in its filings, 96% daily use, dates from Aug 31, 2024?
- How much of the rise in revenue per employee, from about $344,000 in 2022 to about $1.24 million in 2025, comes from AI rather than the hiring freeze, attrition and revenue growth?
- What return do Kiki, ChatGPT Enterprise, the coding copilot, the ElevenLabs voice agent and the credit decision explanation tool deliver, given that Klarna has published no figures for them?
- Which coding copilot do Klarna's engineers use, and what share of Klarna's production code does AI now write?
- Will Klarna's machine learning risk scoring model be treated as high-risk under the EU AI Act, and what will compliance cost?
- How much volume or revenue do Klarna's app and payment options inside ChatGPT and Google's Gemini bring in?
- Will Klarna's next CFO and CMO keep reporting AI savings and revenue per employee after Niclas Neglén and David Sandström leave in early 2027?
Sources
Klarna
- Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month (Feb 27, 2024)
- About 90% of Klarna staff use AI daily (May 14, 2024)
- Klarna backs Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (Feb 2, 2026)
- Klarna's flexible payments are coming to Google Search and the Gemini app (May 12, 2026)
- Klarna launches Shopping Search app in ChatGPT (May 20, 2026)
- Klarna announces planned CFO and CMO transitions (Aug 18, 2026)
- Klarna to present at the UBS Global Technology and AI Conference, via Yahoo Finance (Oct 28, 2026)
Filings and investor materials
- Klarna Group plc Form 20-F for 2025 (filed Feb 26, 2026)
- Klarna Group plc IPO prospectus, Form 424B4 (Sep 10, 2025)
- Q1 2025 earnings release (May 19, 2025)
- Q3 2025 investor presentation (Nov 18, 2025)
- Q4 2025 earnings release (Feb 19, 2026)
- Q4 2025 earnings presentation (Feb 2026)
- Q1 2026 press release (May 14, 2026)
- Q1 2026 earnings release (May 14, 2026)
- Q2 2026 earnings release (Aug 18, 2026)
Partners
News
- Bloomberg Law: Klarna slows AI-driven job cuts with call for real people (May 8, 2025)
- CX Dive: Klarna reinvests in human talent for customer service (May 9, 2025)
- CX Dive: Klarna pursues Uber-style customer service model (Feb 20, 2026)
- Fortune: Klarna's CEO expects the workforce to shrink to under 2,000 by 2030 (Feb 17, 2026)
- Charter: What Klarna learned from its AI rollout (Feb 15, 2026)
- Semafor: Klarna on the fight for top of wallet in agentic commerce (Jun 9, 2026)
- Banking Dive: Klarna CFO and CMO to leave early next year (Aug 19, 2026)
- Banking Dive: Adyen hires Klarna CFO Niclas Neglén (Sep 22, 2026)
- Ehandel.se: Camilla Giesecke leaves Klarna after nine years (Apr 1, 2026)
- TechCrunch: Klarna CEO on Salesforce and AI (Mar 4, 2025)
- Runtime: Why Klarna chose graph databases to shed SaaS (Apr 1, 2025)
- Fortune: Klarna's workforce plans and AI, citing the FT (Aug 28, 2024)
- The Next Web: Klarna freezes hiring, citing AI (Dec 4, 2023)
- IT Finanzmagazin: Klarna adopts ChatGPT Enterprise (Aug 30, 2023)
Data confidence
- Confirmed
- Stated in a primary or reputable public source.
- Estimated
- Derived or approximated from public reporting.
- Unconfirmed
- Reported, but not yet corroborated.
Klarna profile · Enterprise AI diffusion report by Imagine · facts checked against their sources on Oct 31, 2026
