Klarna's AI handles 80% of support chats; the cost line rose anyway
Klarna's annual report claims $59M saved by its AI assistant in 2025, yet support costs rose 2%. Budget AI as growth without hiring, not a cut.
At a glance
- Company
- Klarna · Financial services · 1,000-4,999 employees
- Team and use case
- Customer support · Ticket deflection
- Tools
- Klarna AI assistant (built with OpenAI)
- Stage
- Scaled across teams, since February 2024
- Results
- Share of support chats handled by the AI assistant: 80% (2025)
- Work done, in full-time agents (Klarna's estimate): Over 700 (2024) → Over 850 (2025)
- Customer service and operations cost, per year: $240M (2023); $203M (2024) → $207M (2025)
- Full-time employees, whole company: 4,352 (end of 2023) → 2,831 (end of 2025)
- Cost
- Not disclosed: what the assistant costs to run and what Klarna pays OpenAI. Klarna estimates savings of $39 million (2024) and about $59 million (2025).
- People
- Full-time employees fell from 4,352 to 2,831 in two years; Klarna expects further falls. Number of human support agents, in-house or outsourced: Not disclosed. Customers can still ask for a person. Checking is described only as human involvement in training and monitoring.
- Evidence
- Company-measured, method disclosed
The company measured its own result and says how: the baseline, the period and what was counted.
What this leaves out: Cost lines and headcount are from Klarna's SEC filings with prior-year baselines. The 80% is from its chat logs and the agent equivalent is its estimate from the fall in conversations handled by people. No method is given for the $59 million, and no baseline for the 80%.
Klarna, the payments company, says its AI assistant handled 80% of its customer service chats in 2025, doing work equal to that of over 850 full-time agents and saving about $59 million in the year. The figures are in the [annual report](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2003292/000200329226000007/klar-20251231.htm) it filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on 26 February 2026. In the same report, the cost line that pays for support went up.
The support cost line, year by year
- 2023: $240 million in customer service and operations expenses, before the February 2024 launch.
- 2024: $203 million, down $37 million (15%). Klarna's estimate for that year: the assistant did the work of over 700 full-time agents and saved $39 million.
- 2025: $207 million, up $4 million (2%), with the estimate at over 850 agents and about $59 million saved. Volumes rose 32% and transactions 25%.
- First half of 2026: $112 million against $102 million a year earlier, up 10%, while revenue rose 35%, per the [half-year report](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2003292/000162828026057573/h126exno994klarnagrouppl.htm). The second quarter's $58 million is the highest in the ten quarters shown in Klarna's [quarterly table](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2003292/000162828026057573/financialstatementsandsu.htm); the lowest was $44 million in the third quarter of 2024.
Measured against revenue, the line kept shrinking: 7.2% in 2024 ($203 million ÷ $2,811 million), 5.9% in 2025 ($207 million ÷ $3,509 million) and 5.5% in the first half of 2026 ($112 million ÷ $2,054 million). Wren's read: the $59 million is a saving against what 2025's volume would have cost with human agents. It is not money that left the budget.
How Klarna measured it
The 80% comes from Klarna's service chat logs. The agent equivalent is an estimate "based on the average monthly reduction in chat and telephone conversations handled by full-time agents in 2025". AI-handled chats rank "on par with human agents" in its own satisfaction surveys and took two minutes on average against 12 for human agents in 2024. It does not say how the $59 million was calculated, what the assistant costs to run, or what Klarna pays OpenAI, its partner on the assistant. One figure is hard to read: the report dates a 25% fall in repeat inquiries to "between December 2023 and January 2024", before the February 2024 launch date it gives.
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The people
Klarna had about 4,352 full-time employees at the end of 2023, 3,422 at the end of 2024 and 2,831 at the end of 2025. The report calls this a "strategic decision to reduce our overall headcount" by "leveraging AI" and expects the number "to continue to decrease". It does not say how many human support agents remain. The support cost line covers "outsourced assistance" as well as staff, so agents at outsourcers are not in the employee count. Customers can still ask for a person: "we continue to offer all of our customers that option". On checking answers, it cites only "human involvement in the training and monitoring of our AI tools".
Marketing: $10 million saved, then spending up 26%
Klarna says it cut spending on outside marketing suppliers ("translation, production, CRM and social agencies") by $7 million in the first quarter of 2024 and attributes 37% of that, about $2.6 million, to AI. It estimates AI saved $10 million in marketing across 2024. Sales and marketing expenses then went from $328 million in 2024 to $414 million in 2025, up 26%, which the report puts down to share-based pay and "increased marketing spend to support product adoption". No 2025 figure for AI savings in marketing is given.
Since the report
Klarna's [second-quarter release](https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-reports-second-quarter-2026-results/) of 18 August 2026 gives no updated figures for the assistant. Third-quarter results were not out when this was written.
What to do if you run support
- In your business case, report support cost as a share of revenue, or per contact, each quarter. Do not promise the finance chief a lower total unless volume is flat.
- Ask your vendor, or your own analyst, to state how "agents' worth of work" is counted. Klarna's method is the fall in conversations handled by people, which a quieter month would also produce.
- Keep the route to a person and count how many customers take it. Klarna keeps the option and does not publish the count.
Take this to work
Forward this
Klarna's annual report for 2025 says its AI assistant handled 80% of customer service chats and saved about $59 million, yet its customer service and operations costs rose 2% to $207 million as volumes grew 32%. An AI assistant on a growing support queue is a case for holding cost per contact down, not for a smaller budget line.
Questions to ask
- What would our support volume have cost this year at last year's cost per contact, and what did it cost?
- How is "work equal to N agents" counted: contacts no longer reaching people, or contacts resolved without a repeat?
- What do we pay per AI-handled chat, including the model vendor's fees, and how does that move with volume?
- How many customers ask for a person after starting with the assistant, and how long do they wait?
- How many support roles, in-house and at outsourcers, changed or ended, and who now reviews the assistant's answers?
The arithmetic
Support cost as a share of revenue = customer service cost for the period ÷ revenue for the period. Run it for each quarter before and after the assistant; do the same per contact if you have contact counts.
Klarna: $203 million ÷ $2,811 million = 7.2% in 2024; $207 million ÷ $3,509 million = 5.9% in 2025; $112 million ÷ $2,054 million = 5.5% in the first half of 2026. Klarna does not publish chat counts by year or a cost per chat, so the per-contact sum cannot be done from its filings.
Questions this article answers
How much of Klarna's customer service does AI handle?
Klarna's annual report for 2025 says its AI assistant handled 80% of customer service chats in the year, based on its own chat logs, and has had 31 million conversations since launching in February 2024.
How much did Klarna save with its AI assistant?
Klarna estimates about $59 million in 2025 and $39 million in 2024. The annual report does not give the method, and its customer service and operations costs rose from $203 million in 2024 to $207 million in 2025.
Did Klarna's customer service costs go down after AI?
They fell 15% in 2024, from $240 million to $203 million, then rose 2% to $207 million in 2025 and 10% in the first half of 2026, to $112 million. As a share of revenue they fell from 7.2% in 2024 to 5.5% in the first half of 2026.
Can Klarna customers still talk to a human agent?
Yes. The annual report says Klarna continues to offer all customers the option of a human representative. It does not say how many customers use it or how many human agents it has.
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