Rafael Enrique | SOPA Image | Light Rocket (via Getty Images)
Swedish financial technology company Klarna announced on Tuesday that nearly nine out of 10 of its 5,000 employees now use generative artificial intelligence tools in their daily work.
Klarna allows individuals to purchase in interest-free monthly installments and said more than 87% of its employees use generative AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and its own in-house AI assistant.
According to Klarna, people in non-technical groups such as communications (92.6%), marketing (87.9%), and legal (86.4%) use generative AI the most within their companies.
At such rates, Klarna sees the adoption of generative AI within the enterprise far ahead of the wider corporate world.
According to a study by consulting firm Deloitte, 61% of people who work with computers use generative AI programs in their daily work, but line managers may not be aware of it.
Klarna has its own internal AI assistant called Kiki.
According to the company, 85% of all employees now use Kiki, and the chatbot now responds to an average of 2,000 queries per day.
Klarna said the primary use of the AI generated by its communications team, or OpenAI's ChatGPT, is to assess whether press articles written about the company are positive or negative.
Klarna lawyers use ChatGPT Enterprise, a business-grade version of OpenAI's technology, to create first drafts of common contract types and reduce contract writing time.
“You still need to tailor the contract to make it work for your particular case, but you can draft a contract in 10 minutes instead of an hour,” says Selma, Klaruna's senior general counsel.・Mr. Bogren said in a press statement.
Klarna has touted AI as a big boon to its bottom line as it looks to pivot its story from the hectic days of 2020 and 2021.
At the time, the environment for technology companies like Klarna was characterized by the availability of cheap capital, leading to significant increases in spending at all costs to jobs and growth.
Klarna laid off about 10% of its global workforce in 2022 to cut costs and prepare its business for the economic disruption caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The company's valuation was $6.7 billion in 2022, down 85% from 2021.
Klarna said its decision to cut headcount across the board had paid off, and the introduction of AI had improved the profitability of its underlying business.
The company reported its first quarterly profit in four years in the September quarter, which it attributed to lower credit losses and investments in AI.
In February, Klarna announced that its AI chatbots replaced the jobs of 700 full-time customer service jobs, resulting in a net savings of $40 million.
The news sent shares in French outsourcing giant Teleperformance down nearly 20% as investors worried that AI could disrupt the company's own lucrative call center business in the future.