{"id":215280,"date":"2025-10-10T22:03:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/215280\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T22:03:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T22:03:12","slug":"ai-enabled-klarna-to-halve-its-workforce-now-the-ceo-is-warning-workers-that-other-tech-bros-are-sugarcoating-just-how-badly-its-about-to-impact-jobs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/215280\/","title":{"rendered":"AI enabled Klarna to halve its workforce\u2014now, the CEO is warning workers that other \u2018tech bros\u2019 are sugarcoating just how badly it\u2019s about to impact jobs"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Ford CEO Jim Farley<\/a> to Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei<\/a>, a growing number of CEOs are ringing the alarm bells that artificial intelligence could threaten millions of jobs around the world. But one CEO says too many of his peers are sugarcoating the truth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel a lot of my tech bros are being slightly not to the point on this topic,\u201d Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski<\/a> told Bloomberg<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there is a massive shift coming to knowledge work. And it\u2019s not just in banking, it\u2019s in society at large.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some executives<\/a> have tried to calm fears by saying AI will create new jobs<\/a>, the 44-year-old buy now, pay later<\/a> billionaire argues that optimism can be misleading\u2014especially in the near term. He singled out that in Brussels, thousands of people still work as translators, a job he says can already largely be done by AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cSociety will have to figure out what are we going to do because yes, new jobs will be created, but in the shorter term, that doesn\u2019t help the Brussels translator. He\u2019s not going to become a YouTube<\/a> influencer tomorrow,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Klarna\u2019s embrace of AI\u2014and being its \u2018guinea pig\u2019<\/p>\n

Siemiatkowski has been one of AI\u2019s most aggressive adopters, even telling OpenAI\u2019s Sam Altman<\/a> in 2023 that he wanted Klarna to be ChatGPT\u2019s \u201cfavorite guinea pig.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

By early 2024, Klarna had launched an OpenAI-powered customer service chatbot that the company said can do the work equivalent to 800 full-time agents.<\/p>\n

But not every experiment went smoothly. Some customers complained about the lack of human support, prompting Klarna to rethink<\/a> part of its AI-first hiring strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality,\u201d Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg<\/a> in May. \u201cReally investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with the recalibration, Klarna\u2019s AI push has come with real consequences for workers. The company slowed hiring and reduced its employee base from 7,400 to 3,000, Siemiatkowski said.<\/p>\n

The cost cuts and tech investment have paid off financially. In its most recent earnings report<\/a>, the fintech firm reported 38% year-over-year revenue growth in the U.S. and rising profits. That momentum helped Klarna go public<\/a> in September, and today its market cap is just over $15 billion.<\/p>\n

Fortune reached out to Siemiatkowski for further comment.<\/p>\n

An AI-first CEO<\/p>\n

Siemiatkowski isn\u2019t just talking about AI\u2014he\u2019s living it. He told Bloomberg that he uses the technology \u201call the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May, he appeared<\/a> on an earnings call as an AI-generated video replica, delivering scripted remarks in his own voice and likeness. Klarna also rolled out a 24\/7 \u201cAI CEO Hotline,\u201d which answers customer questions in Siemiatkowski\u2019s conversational style, both in English and Swedish.<\/p>\n

Even at home, the 44-year-old CEO admits AI has seeped into his off-hours, leaning into vibe coding<\/a> in particular to explore Klarna\u2019s code base.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy wife is complaining because when the kids go to sleep, I\u2019m like, \u2018Hey, can I just go and vibe code a bit?\u2019 So she\u2019s not too happy with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s so intriguing, it\u2019s so fantastic to learn these technologies. People should not be afraid of technology.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Ford CEO Jim Farley to Anthropic\u2019s Dario Amodei, a growing number of CEOs are ringing the alarm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":215281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,13652,525,2536,1530,134,72806,172,5935,11460,74,32042,8586],"class_list":["post-215280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-billionaires","tag-careers","tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","tag-fintech","tag-jobs","tag-klarna","tag-tech","tag-tech-industry","tag-tech-workers","tag-technology","tag-the-future-of-work","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}