Klarna: an AI assistant handling two-thirds of customer service chats

Klarna handed the first line of customer service to AI. According to the company, its assistant handled 2.3 million conversations in its first month, about two-thirds of all customer service chats and the equivalent of 700 full-time agents.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Company	Klarna
Industry	Fintech
Use cases	Customer service automation
Reported results	2.3 million chats in month one; resolution time down from 11 to under 2 minutes; repeat inquiries down 25%; projected $40 million profit improvement in 2024. Klarna later rebuilt human support after quality concerns

Case details

Background

In its press release Klarna says it serves 150 million consumers worldwide. Service requests cover refunds, returns, payments, cancellations and disputes, and are high in volume and highly repetitive.

What they did

Klarna launched an OpenAI-powered customer service assistant inside the Klarna app. It is available around the clock in 23 markets and in more than 35 languages. It handles refunds, returns, payment issues, cancellations, disputes and invoice errors, and can update balances and repayment plans and explain spending limits. Customers can still choose to talk to a human agent.

Results and data

Metric	As stated by Klarna (February 2024)
Conversations in the first month	2.3 million
Share of service chats	About two-thirds
Equivalent workload	About 700 full-time agents
Customer satisfaction	On par with human agents
Time to resolve	From 11 minutes to under 2
Repeat inquiries	Down 25%
2024 profit improvement	Projected at about $40 million

In May 2025, CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg that cost had been weighted too heavily in past evaluations, and that AI support was cheaper but lower in quality. Klarna began recruiting remote human agents, aiming to make sure customers can always reach a person.

What to take from it

• Start with frequent, standardized questions. Refunds, returns and payments are high-volume and rule-based, which makes them the natural first job for AI.
• Keep a human channel. Klarna allowed handoff to people from launch and later strengthened human support again; a human fallback is not optional.

Limits

• The first-month figures are self-reported by Klarna and not audited. “700 agents” is an equivalence, not actual layoffs, and the $40 million is a projection.
• The CEO publicly acknowledged quality problems in May 2025, so first-month data alone overstates the long-term effect.
• Businesses with many long-tail or complex inquiries should not expect the same automation rate.

Sources

Original source: Klarna press release · Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month Additional source: Entrepreneur · Klarna Is Hiring Customer Service Agents After AI Couldn’t Cut It on Calls

This is an industry research entry: a publicly documented third-party AI case, not a Moments client case. For projects Moments delivered itself, see client cases.