[HN Gopher] Klarna changes its AI tune and again recruits humans...
___________________________________________________________________
Klarna changes its AI tune and again recruits humans for customer
service
Author : elsewhen
Score : 159 points
Date : 2025-05-11 17:35 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.customerexperiencedive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.customerexperiencedive.com)
| GreenGames wrote:
| I don't understand what Klarna is doing here lol
| firtoz wrote:
| They went too hard too early
| gregdoesit wrote:
| Either Klarna is really good at pulling strings to get media
| coverage, or mainstream media does not fact checking themselves.
| About a year ago, the company was everywhere in the media when
| its CEO announced that it created an AI bot that is doing the
| equivalent of 700 fulltime customer service folks.
|
| I did what seemingly no other publication reporting on it did:
| signed up for Klarna, bought one item and used this bot.
|
| I was... not impressed?
|
| Klarna's "AI bot" felt like the "L1 support flow" that every
| other company already has in-place: without AI! Think like when
| you have a problem with your UberEats order and 80% of cases are
| resolved without a human interaction (e.g. when an item is
| missing for your item.)
|
| I walked through the bot's capabilities [1] and my conclusion was
| that pretty much every other company did this before (automating
| the obvious support cases.) The real question should have been:
| why did Klarna not do it before? And when it did, why did it
| build a wonky AI bot, instead of more intuitive workflows than
| other companies did?
|
| My sense is that Klarna really wants to be seen as an "AI-first
| tech company" when it goes public, and not a "buy now pay later
| loan company" because AI companies have higher valuations even
| with the same revenue. But at its core, Klarna is a finance or
| ecommerce-related company: an not much to do with AI (even if it
| uses AI tools to make its business more efficient - regardless of
| whether it could use non-AI tools to get the same thing done)
|
| [1] https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/klarnas-ai-chatbot/
| vrosas wrote:
| To be fair, admitting their amateur foray into chatbots was an
| abject failure and rolling it back really does put them at the
| forefront of the AI movement.
| iforgetti wrote:
| Glen Okun of NYU business school has written about BNPL loan
| portfolio weakness.
|
| The AI marketing is just an attempt to reframe the value
| narrative of the company before IPO. They would rather be seen
| as an AI company than an unsecured lender of last resort.
|
| The narrative on Klarna's core business is not good in any
| case, either an extractive lender benefiting from people buying
| what they may not afford and charging exorbitant interest or a
| lender of last resort who has not properly underwritten the
| risk in their portfolio. Neither is preferential to them
| compared to a value narrative framing them as an AI company.
| Likely the market is too skeptical in this environment to take
| the bait however.
| blibble wrote:
| > a lender of last resort who has not properly underwritten
| the risk in their portfolio.
|
| I thought they more or less instantly offloaded the risk as
| asset backed securities to clueless people who didn't know
| the actual risk profile what they were buying
|
| sound familiar?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I can't believe it takes b-school professors to figure out
| that people financing their DoorDash might not be the best
| people to lend money to.
| rchaud wrote:
| This is the primary positioning tactic used across the
| startup industry . Uber isn't a taxi app, it's actually the
| "future front end for millions to access autonomous
| transport". Doordash isn't a delivery app, it's an "on-
| demand logistics" platform.
|
| Similarly, Klarna isn't a shady payday loan company, it's
| an "AI-first consumer finance play".
| Avicebron wrote:
| > "AI-first consumer finance play"
|
| In a more civilized time, saying this was your plan would
| get you chucked feet-first into a wood chipper.
| runlaszlorun wrote:
| oh I think we're heading back that way slowly...
| Freak_NL wrote:
| They are scum, and currently are suffering from increased
| scrutiny from governments for pushing their buy-now-pay-later
| exploitative business everywhere. In the Netherlands they are
| even attempting to gain access to brick-and-mortar stores by
| partnering with Adyen1 which provides the payment solutions,
| but the government is being vocal about that being unwanted.
| This is in addition to the unabating coverage in the media
| about how Klarna is about as harmless as vaping -- that is,
| they are enticing young people into buying stuff they don't
| need2 before they can afford it.
|
| Shopkeepers don't want it, but fear they must if big chains
| start offering it, just as online shops feel like offering it
| is unavoidable due to the popularity in certain demographics.
| The financial watchdog doesn't like Klarna, and is increasing
| scrutiny3.
|
| If Klarna has trouble marketing their value, then that at
| least is good news, but not unsurprising given the spate of
| attention it received over the last two years.
|
| 1: So much for the ethical side of Adyen (e.g.,
| https://www.adyen.com/impact sounds hollow when you partner
| with loan sharks).
|
| 2: Some people are quick to defend Klarna for offering people
| a chance to buy their necessities with what amounts to a
| payday loan, but that is bullshit. Klarna predominantly is
| not used for daily necessities.
|
| 3: Klarna now has to state that they are offering a loan in
| the Netherlands where they are available as payment option,
| with the mandatory "borrowing money costs money" tag-line.
| nikanj wrote:
| Shopkeepers do want it, because it expands their market
| from those with funds to also those without. Klarna carries
| the lending risks, for the shopkeeps it's a risk-free
| customer base
| returnInfinity wrote:
| that's the short term, if everyone starts to default,
| something is going to break and come back to the shop
| keeper.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| In the Netherlands no less than twenty trade associations
| sent letters to the government on behalf of their
| shopkeeper members urging legal action to prevent Klarna
| from coming. Part of it is that Klarna is fairly
| expensive compared to the common payment methods (i.e.,
| cash and debit cards). Klarna charges a whopping 4% of
| the purchase price, whereas using a debit card (perhaps
| 95% of payments in physical shops) costs a fixed 17 euro
| cents, and cash costs just the costs of keeping it around
| safely and getting it to the bank.
|
| But there is also the realisation that a customer who
| uses BNPL today, won't be coming back next month when
| they are paying off their loan.
|
| Dutch shopkeepers do not want Klarna, but if major chains
| like Primark etc. do it, they fear customers will start
| expecting it.
| ericmay wrote:
| > But there is also the realisation that a customer who
| uses BNPL today, won't be coming back next month when
| they are paying off their loan.
|
| I don't think that's a good argument. For shops and
| customers that utilize BNPL you are not typically making
| routine purchases at the shop anyway because the minimums
| are $50 or more (merchants can negotiate those terms with
| the provider) but the base tends to be around $50.
|
| If you buy a bicycle using BNPL you're not like coming
| back to the shop the next month and buying a new bike
| again.
|
| BNPL increases sales and merchants really like using it
| which is why they are signing up for it more and more.
| Basically the increase in cost is worth it to increase
| sales.
|
| There may be some bad social dynamics, taking out loans,
| etc. but generally both merchants and customers like
| using those products which is why they use them.
| gmd63 wrote:
| They might say they want it, but like a wise parent
| guiding the BNPL spending habits of a teenager,
| government is right to step in and stop shopkeepers from
| seeking to cheese their way through business (only in the
| short term) by relying on a fickle and unsustainable base
| of new creditors.
|
| Putting a new group of people into predatory debt is a
| nice way to juice your numbers before you dump your
| shares, but it's not a good way to sustain an economy
| focused on producing real value.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| that depends on the deal. Restaurants don't wnat meal
| delivery services because of the terrible economics but
| really have no choice if the delivery company captures
| the customer base.
| subtlesoftware wrote:
| If you default on your Klarna loan, you could pay them back
| in support hours:
|
| > The pilot has started small, with two of the new breed of
| customer-service agents live now, but the ambition is to tap
| into candidates such as students or rural populations. "We
| also know there are tons of Klarna users that are very
| passionate about our company and would enjoy working for us,"
| he added.
|
| [from the bloomberg article:
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-08/klarna-
| tu...]
| Avicebron wrote:
| The problem with "AI-first" companies is that they really are
| just shells for people who want to be "AI-First" engineers, and
| not "guy who solved my problem affordably and was nice"
| engineers. The average person doesn't care how you ended up
| fixing the weird charge on their account, it's how fast and how
| proficiently did you fix it
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| I liked your comment but don't think the shot at media was
| necessary. A company replacing workers is news enough and the
| fact checking need only be to validate that information. The
| "as good as 700 workers" I assume was presented as a claim, not
| a fact.
|
| Evaluating the effectiveness of the AI bot is another matter
| and firmly in the investigative journalism sphere.
| Coincidentally that is an awesome application of a blog.
| AznHisoka wrote:
| Sorry, but its attitudes like yours that make it easy for
| media to keep spouting out ridiculous claims/lies, and get
| away with it.
|
| Shots are absolutely necessary when its warranted. Full.
| Stop.
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| Am I allowed to respond once you've used "full. stop."?
| darth_avocado wrote:
| I think this is in the broader context of Klarna CEO claiming
| he had stopped hiring for almost a year because of AI. It was a
| big talking point for a lot of CEOs and LinkedIn influencers.
| Big enough that incompetent management across the industry was
| following Klarna's steps and reducing staffing (Not because AI,
| but because they could short staff teams with AI as an excuse).
| That is why when there is a clear evidence that Klarna was
| completely wrong, it needs to be talked about.
|
| Previous discussion:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42432494
| kgeist wrote:
| >While Klarna pioneered the use of AI in customer service
|
| Local firms here have had bots in customer service for many years
| now, even well before the transformers era. Is Klarna living in a
| bubble?
| cosmicgadget wrote:
| They are pioneering too hard to pay attention to the rest of
| the industry.
| bookofjoe wrote:
| Quote of the day.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| A few days ago Klarna's AI bot lied to me that it was human, lied
| about speaking Finnish as its native tongue, and wrote me a Haiku
| about Klarna's cashback.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| That's actually a great captcha - if the presumed human can
| write a haiku about something very quickly, they are probably a
| bot.
| dakiol wrote:
| Umm, I think any respectable human would simply deny writing
| a haiku. So, a bot can simply mimick that behaviour.
| dmd wrote:
| Can, but won't!
| lukan wrote:
| Because system prompts cannot be changed?
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Because it's hard to draw the line on which requests
| should be refused and which should not be refused,
| because it's hard for an AI to pretend to be human, and
| because they have other objectives to work toward rather
| than just passing the Turing test.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Sure, it could. In theory.
| geysersam wrote:
| Bots love haiku. They're hopeless romantics.
| abhisek wrote:
| > AI gives us speed. Talent gives us empathy
|
| Not sure if this is the primary reason. It just seems to me their
| AI adoption was unable to meet the baseline effectiveness of
| their human agents.
| AIPedant wrote:
| "Empathy is when you use common-sense reasoning to solve
| problems that weren't explicitly covered during training."
| jsheard wrote:
| What does empathy even mean in the context of payday-loans-as-
| a-service? They'll lure people debt traps and then bleed them
| dry, but pretend to feel bad about doing it?
| aerhardt wrote:
| I whole-heartedly believe in free markets, but at the same time,
| fuck everything about the circus clown show that is modern
| techno-capitalism.
| treyd wrote:
| This is where incrementally making markets more and more "free"
| gets us.
| mystraline wrote:
| Go hack and read Marx and Engels, and also study Ned Ludd and
| Luddism/luddites.
|
| There is NOTHING special about current technology in
| application of capitalism. Its always been exploitive, and
| grinds people into used and nearly dead objects.
|
| The answer isn't reforming capitalism, either. FDR tried, and
| we're back to the Black Friday set of events... But in this
| case, we're even worse off with alienation of basically every
| country as some sort of oneupmanship.
| lukan wrote:
| So .. your answer is to try socialism again?
|
| Were there any major updates to the agenda, since it was
| tried the last time?
|
| If not, why expect a different outcome next time?
| mystraline wrote:
| Go actually study what's going on in China, rather than
| eating up all the US propaganda.
|
| What they're doing in tech innovation is astonishing. And
| you can look at even just something like high speed rail,
| and its amazing. They're also connecting western Europe as
| well to the rail system. Look up Belt and Road initiative.
|
| They're also on the forefront in green/clean tech. And
| thorium reactors. Oh, and fusion.
|
| I'd say their 'try' is doing damned well. Its certainly
| blowing the USA out of the water. Well, unless you count
| number of homeless. We're beating them handedly there.
| lukan wrote:
| Oh, you count china as socialism?
|
| I rather meant the more traditional approaches, like the
| one I was born into that fell apart. China as of now is
| rather state capitalism to me.
|
| And yes, they are quite effective in some areas.
| Totalitarism can be. Doesn't mean I would like to copy
| them.
| fullshark wrote:
| Maybe you should reconsider where your heart lies, and ask if
| "free markets" that have worked so well for modern society have
| always been heavily regulated in order ensure they serve
| citizens beyond capital owners.
| okanat wrote:
| Our system isn't a free market. With 95 years of corporate
| copyright you'll have no free market. Neither with 20 years of
| patents. China probably has freer markets than West now,
| because since 1950s the West is constantly siding with
| mono/oligopolies that are against free market. The origins of
| capitalism is against free market. Neither Britain nor the
| Netherlands got their capitalism head-start because they let
| their companies to fairly fight. They created monopolies to
| terrorize, genocide, and impoverish people.
|
| Startup ecosystem is against free market. YC is against free
| market. They want the startups to grow at the cost of
| everything else and buy out all their competition. There is no
| fair competition nor free market there.
| g9yuayon wrote:
| I'm more curious about how much cost of customer service can
| Klarna cut by using AI , and how much marginal improvement to
| their customer service can Klarna achieve. Customer service
| should be an amazing application to AI: AI solves X% of the
| problems, and for the remaining 1 - X% of the problems, customers
| will tell the system deterministically, which means the company
| can continuously improve their systems with customer feedbacks.
| osigurdson wrote:
| I think it is generally in the best interest of companies to
| overstate what they are able to do with AI. Investors aren't
| interesting in hearing "we tried vibe coding but got tired of
| reviewing and fixing the trash code it produced". No, they want
| to hear "we've reduced our headcount by 40% while increasing
| customer satisfaction by 60%". Overstating AI adoption and
| success amplifies P/E ratios.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I wonder if investors see AI usage as some kind of reassurance
| that their other investments are going to make money. Basically
| everyone is lying through their teeth to infantilize investors
| that they made A Good Choice investing in nebulous AI
| companies. The folks that don't play the game don't get
| funding.
| feverzsj wrote:
| Sounds like a trick to hire human with lower salary.
| iamsanteri wrote:
| Even here people don't seem to realize, or even consider the
| likely fact that Klarna CEO has been bullsh**ing all along. I
| read a hugely viral post of them replacing their entire CRM with
| AI. It's ridiculous to me people took that seriously!
| rwmj wrote:
| It's Ryanair all over again. Remember the stories about how
| Ryanair were going to make passengers pay to use the toilets,
| or the "all standing" plane (which would obviously be highly
| illegal, but credulous journalists printed it anyway). All a
| very cheap, very successful marketing campaign.
| AznHisoka wrote:
| Absolutely, people need to assume everything they read in media
| is wrong, then find evidence to prove otherwise. Klarna
| replaced their CRM with AI? Good. Its absolutely false until I
| find enough evidence going forward that its true
| kace91 wrote:
| I went through klarna's interview process some time ago.
|
| I had to go through both reasonable and weird steps, including IQ
| tests for some reason. I passed them all, and then I was ghosted,
| and upon reaching out I was met with months of excuses asking me
| to wait (the recruiter is on vacation, we're waiting for the new
| budget to be approved, "I personally forgot to reply", and a few
| others). I eventually stopped reaching out and never heard back.
|
| If the whole company is as dysfunctional as those interactions
| implied, I wouldn't really look up to them as trendsetters.
| DanielHB wrote:
| Yes they are, a few years ago once got a scuffle with the
| Swedish tax agency because they were abusing some tax
| loopholes. The tax agency came in with the bill and they just
| immediately "layoff" 90% of the contractors working there (a
| good chunk of the workforce). All so their quarterly statements
| wouldn't look bad for the stock market.
|
| Klarna is the prime example of toxic public companies
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| I've worked in the field of Contact Center AI for almost 10 years
| now. Rough order of magnitude you can expect to deflect around
| 30% of inbound contacts with an AI chatbot. You can also expect
| to reduce agent Average Handle Time by 15-20% using AI enabled
| semantic search and workflow automation. This is ballpark, if
| your contacts are simpler you can do a little better, if they're
| complex you'll do a little worse.
|
| The problem is that vendors are telling companies they can
| eliminate 80-90% (maybe even 100% if they can keep a straight
| face) of their customer service agent jobs with AI, and that is
| nonsense.
| firefoxd wrote:
| I spoke about this before [0]. As engineer number one in a
| startup that specialized in customer service automation, I can
| see how they were fooled by an upward trend. The problem is the
| arrow plateaus at ~40%.
|
| Even humans cannot handle all requests because some don't make
| sense or are unrealistic. But at least a human can make that
| judgement and be held accountable for their decisions. I'm
| baffled when companies makes such drastic decisions, I'm pretty
| sure if they had asked (they probably did and ignored them) their
| AI team, they would have advised against firing their agents.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43880490
| lm28469 wrote:
| Anyone with half a brain saw it coming but somehow these elite
| executives lack basic common sense. I wonder who they are
| surrounded with to come up with such deranged business decisions
| Frummy wrote:
| Maybe because they're learning from other swedish finance
| companies, Swedbank lost customers due to bad customer service
| and hired more people to answer the phone, you know so they're
| probably watching what works for others in the same sphere
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-05-11 23:00 UTC)