Klarna said its AI assistant did the work of 700 agents in one month

In a press release dated February 27, 2024, the payments company Klarna said its AI customer-service assistant, built with OpenAI, had in its first month handled 2.3 million conversations - about two-thirds of Klarna’s customer-service chats - which it described as the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents. Klarna also claimed the assistant matched human agents on customer satisfaction, cut repeat inquiries by 25 percent, lowered resolution time from 11 minutes to under 2, and was on track to improve profit by an estimated 40 million dollars in 2024. The figure became a widely cited example of AI displacing customer-service headcount - though Klarna later said it had cut too far and began rehiring human agents.