At London SXSW 2025, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski highlighted how the company combines AI-powered chatbot for support with VIP customer service, proving how AI-driven work is changing workflow while making human help a rare and valued privilege.
AI is changing jobs across industries and while Klarna originally used AI for customer service solutions to automate huge amounts of roles, today, the payment service provider is figuring out how to balance automation and human presence.
It is a broader trend in how technology supports, but does not necessarily replace, employees, especially customer-centered roles, but are human staff members becoming the type of VIP preferred customer service as the world shape shifts to become more machine-driven?
Human Customer Service Becoming a Luxury
In 2024, Klarna attempted to reduce its workers by using AI-driven customer support for communication to lower expenses and increase revenue per employee. Klarna employed 5,500 workers two years ago, but today it employs around 3,000. Yet, Klarna CEO emphasized that human workers matter, especially in customer service.
“We think offering human customer service is always going to be a VIP thing,” Siemiatkowski said.
The Swedish fintech company will keep AI customer service for routine chores but promise customers the human touch when it counts. Such “VIP customer service” is a sign of a future where real humans will be reserved for offering special experiences, showing how technology might render human labor more elite and valuable.
Klarna’s AI-Human Approach
Siemiatkowski shared how he personally uses ChatGPT to learn coding and understand Klarna’s data better. Yet, with every innovation AI presents many challenges, such as scams damaging societies that are limited in their trust of institutions. Therefore, Klarna is walking a fine line between AI tool for customer service and human ability to improve experiences and business effectiveness while observing the risks of new tech.
“I’ll take a Slack thread, I’ll throw it in ChatGPT and say, ‘This makes sense, right?’” calling the AI his “private tutor.” This practical use of AI powered chatbot for customer is helping Klarna grow stronger.
Technically, Klarna ditched software such as Salesforce and Workday to more closely integrate information so that it could make AI use more simply, cutting about 1,200 small software services to bring its systems closer together. The VIP customer service idea suggests a future where human work is not just preserved but strengthened, becoming a desired privilege in an AI era.
Final Thoughts
Today, VIP customer service plays a key role in automating tasks like analyzing customer behavior patterns, speeding up responses, and forecasting trends. But despite these benefits, companies often face pitfalls when rushing to adopt AI for customer support.
Over-automation and an ask AI customer service can sometimes give a less personalized customer experience, making them feel like just numbers rather than real people. Following experts’ advice, the human touch remains essential, and live agents should step in to modify services based on individual needs.
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