This tech company has stopped hiring humans, CEO says AI can do everything most humans do in his office

Klarna, a popular fintech company known for its “buy now, pay later” services, is making headlines after its CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, claimed that artificial intelligence (AI) is now capable of performing nearly all tasks traditionally handled by human employees.

This is a huge claim and raises new questions about the future of human employment. In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Siemiatkowski suggested that AI has advanced to a point where it can manage many roles within a company.

Siemiatkowski revealed that Klarna had stopped hiring new staff about a year ago, leading to a gradual reduction in its workforce. The company, which previously had 4,500 employees, now has 3,500. This reduction happened naturally, according to the CEO, due to the 20 per cent annual attrition rate common in tech firms. Instead of hiring replacements, Klarna opted to let the workforce shrink, further supporting automation and AI.

“We have a natural attrition like every tech company. People stay for about five years, so 20 per cent leave every year. By not hiring, we are simply shrinking,” he said.

Despite this shift, Siemiatkowski suggested that the current employees’ salaries would not be affected negatively. In fact, he stated that as Klarna’s overall salary costs decrease due to fewer staff, the savings could translate into increased pay for those who remain.

This news comes amid growing global discussions about AI’s impact on jobs. A 2023 report by McKinsey & Company predicted that as AI continues to evolve, millions of workers could be forced to transition into new roles by 2030. Klarna’s decision not to actively recruit new staff is seen as a concrete example of how AI is already reshaping the modern workplace.

While Klarna’s website still lists some job openings, a company spokesperson told Business Insider that they are not expanding but only hiring for essential roles, particularly in engineering. This suggests that tech companies are gradually adjusting their workforce strategies as AI is being integrated into their operations with time.

Additionally, just last year, IBM — which is an American tech company — also showed its support for AI and automation. The company’s CEO Arvind Krishna asserted in an interview with Bloomberg that some jobs can be replaced by AI in the next five years. He also mentioned that Human Resources (HR) could one be of the departments, which could potentially be replaced by AI.

“I could easily see 30 per cent of that getting replaced by AI and automation over a five-year period,” he said.