Klarna Says AI Assistant Answers 2,000 Employee Questions Daily

Klarna reported that over 87% of its employees across the company are now using generative artificial intelligence in their daily work.

The global payments network and shopping assistant also said that its internal AI assistant, Kiki, is answering 2,000 employee questions per day and has responded to more than 250,000 inquiries since it was launched in June, according to a Tuesday (May 14) press release.

“We push everyone to test, test, test and explore,” Klarna CEO and Co-founder Sebastian Siemiatkowski said in the release. “As Klarna continues to discover applications for OpenAI’s tech, there’s the potential to take the business to new heights.”

Kiki, which is now being used by 85% of Klarna employees, helps manage and distribute internal knowledge, according to the release. It generates answers to questions within 5 seconds, helping employees find answers and solve issues independently.

In Klarna’s communications team, where 93% of employees are using generative AI, the technology is being used to determine whether articles written about Klarna are positive or negative for the company. It does so objectively and within seconds, the release said.

In the company’s legal team, where 86% of employees are using the technology, generative AI is being used to generate the first draft of common types of contracts. This has reduced the time it takes to produce a contract from an hour to 10 minutes, per the release.

“We’re aimed at achieving a new level of employee empowerment, enhancing both our team’s performance and the customer experience,” Siemiatkowski said in the release.

OpenAI, which provided the large language models used to develop Kiki, said in April that Klarna’s adoption of generative AI is expected to yield a $40 million improvement in the payment network’s profits this year.

In another deployment of the technology, Klarna’s chatbot now fields two-thirds of the company’s customer service chats. This has contributed to consumers resolving their issues in less than one-fifth the time it took previously and has taken on the labor of 700 full-time employees.

Generative AI is promising labor- and cost-saving applications in every field, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Preparing for a Generative AI World.”

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