Klarna: Using AI for Growth, Efficiency & Executive Cloning

It is not every day that a Chief Executive uses an AI clone to present company results, but that is the approach Klarna’s CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, took to deliver the fintech firm’s first-quarter highlights for 2025.

In a video released on YouTube, the hyperreal avatar of the CEO admits the ruse from the outset.

It confesses: “It’s me, or rather my AI avatar, here to share Klarna’s Q1 2025 highlights.”

The avatar proceeds to detail Klarna's performance, noting a new record of 100 million active consumers, which marks its most rapid growth in two years.

Klarna also achieved its fourth consecutive profitable quarter with a 15% year-on-year rise in revenue.

According to Klarna, business in the US was a significant factor, contributing to 33% of that growth.

AI-led growth strategy

The AI-generated version of the CEO credits AI for much of this success.

It explained that Klarna, which is headquartered in Stockholm, has integrated the technology across its operations to enhance growth and improve efficiencies.

“AI is helping us work faster, scale faster and deliver more value,” it says.

“From customer support and marketing to insights and product development, we’re now on track to hit US$1 million per employee – very cool. One hundred million consumers, profit and growth. AI is the engine behind it all.”

Under the Sebastian’s leadership, Klarna has pursued an organisation-wide AI deployment.

Since 2022, it’s streamlined its workforce by approximately 40% while simultaneously increasing the proportion of technology-focused employees from 36% in 2022 to 52% in the first quarter of 2025.

Klarna reports that 96% of its employees use AI daily. This adoption rate has contributed to a 152% increase in revenue per employee since the first quarter of 2023.

The technology is also applied in customer-facing roles where Klarna reports that costs per transaction have fallen by 40% since Q1 2023 without a decline in customer satisfaction levels.

Leadership and AI capabilities

Sebastian has been open about his views on the opportunities and challenges presented by AI.

In a December 2024 interview with Bloomberg, he said: “AI can already do all of the jobs that we as humans do.”

He later elaborated on this remark in a post on the social media platform X in January 2025.

Acknowledging his statement had “caused quite a stir”, Sebastian likened AI’s potential to suggesting hundreds of years ago that human brains could develop cars or rockets, noting that it took many years for those ideas to be realised.

“So to me, AI is capable of doing all our jobs, my own included. Because our work is simply reasoning combined with knowledge/experience. And the most critical breakthrough, reasoning, is behind us,” he said.

“Exactly how long it will take for the world to figure this out, who knows for sure? But I think we can all agree it is not in the hundreds of years…”

Vibe coding and the future of work

The fintech leader is also a proponent of vibe coding, a method that uses AI as a coding assistant through informal and fluid interaction.

Sebastian claims it is a process he has used for 20 years, but one that has accelerated with these AI advancements. This increased speed means tasks that might have previously required lengthy meetings with technology teams can now be completed in minutes from his desk.

“Rather than disrupting my poor engineers and product people with what is half good ideas and half bad ideas, now I test it myself,” Sebastian told the Sourcery podcast.

What this signifies for the future of talent is a developing picture. However, in an interview with Bloomberg Television, the CEO warned that AI could replace many knowledge-based roles, including those in banking and finance.

“I feel a lot of my tech bros are being slightly, you know, not to the point on this topic. I think there is a massive change coming to knowledge work. And it’s not just in banking, it’s in society at large,” he told Bloomberg Television.

“Society will have to figure out what we are going to do because, yes, new jobs will be created, but in the shorter term, that doesn’t help the Brussels translator. He’s not going to become a YouTube influencer tomorrow.”