Whenever you interact with someone—whether a friend, colleague, or business professional—you don’t want them to sound like a robot. You want someone who can understand your emotions, empathize with your frustrations, and truly connect with you. However, with the rise of AI technology, many people and businesses are increasingly relying on AI in their day-to-day work, such as chatting, content creation, and handling business operations.
Let’s understand this with an example. You just bought a refrigerator from Flipkart, and it arrives damaged. You pick up your phone to contact support. An AI chatbot responds—with cold, canned replies. It raises a ticket and sends you a follow-up message. But still, you ask yourself: Will I actually get help? You start having trust issues. Is anyone from the company even taking this chat seriously? These kinds of questions begin to arise in your mind.
This isn’t fiction. This is the story of Klarna, a $6.7 billion Swedish fintech company, that faced this situation not long ago. In this article, you will see the case study of Klarna, a fintech company that relied heavily on AI and is now criticizing it.
What Is Klarna?
Klarna is a global fintech company founded in 2005. It provides “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) services and operates in 45+ countries with over 150 million active users. It became one of Europe’s highest-valued private tech companies during the pandemic-driven e-commerce boom.
But with growth came tough decisions.
In May 2022, Klarna laid off 10% of its global workforce—roughly 700 employees. Most of the cuts hit the customer service and marketing departments.
The company’s vision?
Replace manual support functions with AI to reduce overhead, improve efficiency, and boost scalability.
By 2023, Klarna launched its own AI customer support assistant, powered by OpenAI technology.
Handled 2.3 million customer conversations in just one month
Resolved queries faster than human agents
Claimed to match or exceed traditional support metrics
It looked like a major success.
For a while.
What Went Wrong?
Despite the promising numbers, Klarna’s AI-first approach had serious flaws:
Support tickets were technically resolved, but customers felt emotionally ignored
Complex issues lacked human nuance and empathy
Customer satisfaction began to decline sharply
Eventually, Klarna CEO admitted the truth:
“We focused too much on cost-cutting and not enough on service quality. As cost unfortunately seems to have been a too predominant evaluation factor when organizing this, what you end up having is lower quality,”
Realizing the damage, Klarna quietly started rehiring some of the roles it had eliminated.
The company is testing a new system where people who work from home—like students or those living in the countryside—can log in and offer customer support whenever they’re available, similar to how Uber drivers work.
The company discovered what many others are now learning:
AI can scale conversations, but it cannot build relationships.
Siemiatkowski said ““Really investing in the quality of the human support is the way of the future for us.”
Why AI Falls Short in Customer Support
Even the best AI assistants struggle with:
Human empathy
Contextual understanding
Emotional reassurance
A chatbot can generate answers, but it can’t calm an angry customer or say with real care, “I understand, and I’m here to help.”
Companies that go fully AI-first often see a 40–60% drop in customer satisfaction (Source Capgemini)
Key Takeaways
AI is a tool, not a replacement for people
Use AI to augment, not eliminate human support
Never forget: People trust people, not bots
Final Thought
Sometimes, you only realize someone’s value after they’re gone.
Let Klarna’s journey be a reminder: Don’t automate away your empathy.
