In early 2024, Klarna’s CEO made headlines by announcing that the company’s AI was doing the work of 700 customer service agents. The story quickly became shorthand for AI replacing knowledge work.
By mid-2025, the company had quietly begun hiring humans back after customer experience issues surfaced. Then, by the end of the year, Klarna reported that its AI was handling the workload of more than 850 agents, more than before, according to CX Dive reporting.
The breakdown happened in how success was defined and managed, not in how quickly AI was adopted. Klarna optimized for efficiency, and the system delivered exactly that, handling more volume, faster, and at lower cost. What it didn’t account for was the quality of those interactions, or who was ultimately responsible for the outcome.
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