Klarna’s CEO Hires Humans… as a Luxury Perk
Klarna fired thousands, automated the rest, and now says talking to a human is a premium feature. Welcome to the future of customer service, exactly as I predicted some time ago.
Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski just reframed human interaction as a VIP product. After slashing headcount from 5,500 to 3,000 through AI, Klarna now positions human customer service as a luxury—like bespoke tailoring.
Siemiatkowski uses ChatGPT as a private coding tutor and sees hybrid AI-business talent as the next power class. Klarna also ditched tools like Salesforce to unify its data, key for AI scaling.
But automation has a dark twin: rising scams are undermining trust in places like Sweden and Singapore. As Klarna preps for IPO, one truth emerges, we’re not replacing humans, we’re redefining their value.
- Human support is becoming a premium offering
- Coding-savvy business leaders are rising fast
- AI-driven consolidation rewires company architectures
We’re entering an era where human empathy becomes paywalled. If “connection” becomes a product, what happens to trust?
Read the full article on TechCrunch.
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