Klarna has reported a significant milestone in its AI integration journey, with up to 90% of its staff now utilizing generative AI daily. This surge in adoption spans across various departments, with Communications, Marketing, and Legal leading the charge at 92.6%, 87.9%, and 86.4% respectively.
The buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) giant was quick to harness the potential of AI, being one of the first companies to implement the ChatGPT generative AI bot. This initiative included developing a plugin to provide personalized product recommendations to shoppers.
Internally, Klarna’s AI transformation is spearheaded by Kiki, a custom-built assistant that leverages OpenAI’s Large Language Models to answer employee queries. Handling 2,000 questions daily, Kiki delivers responses within 1 to 5 seconds, offering personalized answers based on the context of the inquiry. For example, when asked, “What is my team working on?” the response is tailored to the individual asking the question.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and co-founder of Klarna, highlights the impact of AI on productivity: “We push everyone to test, test, test and explore. As Klarna continues to discover applications for OpenAI’s tech, there’s the potential to take the business to new heights. We’re aimed at achieving a new level of employee empowerment, enhancing both our team’s performance and the customer experience.”
Non-technical teams have also embraced AI. The Communications department uses ChatGPT to objectively evaluate press articles, improving media monitoring accuracy. Filippa Bolz, head of communications at Klarna, remarks: “Media monitoring companies have tried for at least fifteen years to automate ‘sentiment’ analysis but often you’d get better results from blindfolded monkeys throwing darts. The tool we’ve built using ChatGPT has blown our minds! It provides a really objective analysis of each article in a couple of seconds, helping us ensure clear communication that resonates with each target audience.”
Legal teams are also benefiting from AI. Klarna’s lawyers use ChatGPT Enterprise to draft common types of contracts, significantly reducing the time needed for these tasks. Selma Bogren, senior managing legal counsel at Klarna, explains: “The big law firms have had a really great business just from providing templates for common types of contract. But ChatGPT is even better than a template because you can create something quite bespoke. Instead of spending an hour starting a contract from scratch or working from a template, I can tweak a ChatGPT draft in about ten minutes.”
Klarna’s strategic AI integration exemplifies how generative AI can revolutionize workflows, enhance productivity, and empower employees across various departments. This approach not only optimizes internal processes but also positions the company to provide superior service and innovation in the fintech industry.