Klarna's AI now handles 80% of support chats and headcount is down a third. Its customer service and operations bill still went up.

Previously

In December 2024, Klarna's CEO said AI had let the company stop hiring; its press office said it still backfilled essential roles. In May 2025, he said cost-first AI support had led to "lower quality," and Klarna began piloting freelance human agents (Part 2).

February 2026 — Klarna's first annual report since its September 2025 listing on the New York Stock Exchange gives the clearest numbers yet on its AI support bet. Here's what changed since Part 2 (May 2025), what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of February 2026)

AI share of chats: 80% of customer service chats in 2025, per Klarna's chat logs. (Klarna 20-F)
Work equivalent: over 850 full-time agents, Klarna estimates. (Klarna 20-F)
Savings claimed: about $59 million in 2025. (Klarna 20-F)
Customer service and operations expense: $207 million in 2025, up 2% from $203 million. (Klarna 20-F)
Full-time employees: about 2,831 at year-end 2025, from 3,422 in 2024 and 4,352 in 2023. (Klarna 20-F)

What the filing says about the AI

Klarna says its AI assistant, launched with OpenAI in February 2024, has had 31 million conversations since launch. In 2025 it handled 80% of customer service chats, based on Klarna's chat log data, with "no drop in consumer satisfaction levels" since launch, based on internal surveys.

Klarna puts the assistant's work at more than 850 full-time agents. It explains the estimate: the average monthly drop in chats and calls handled by full-time agents in 2025 after the launch. It credits the assistant with about $59 million in cost savings in 2025.

It also says the AI resolved queries in two minutes, against 12 minutes on average for human agents, as of September 2024. Klarna's launch release in February 2024 had said 11 minutes. Both are Klarna's figures.

What the filing says about people

Klarna had about 2,831 full-time employees at the end of 2025, down from 3,422 a year earlier and 4,352 at the end of 2023. That is a drop of about 35% in two years. The filing says the cut came from a "strategic decision to reduce our overall headcount and drive operational efficiency by leveraging AI." It adds: "We expect the number of employees to continue to decrease in future periods."

More than 1,500 positions, about 53% of the company, were in engineering and data science at year-end.

What it costs

Customer service and operations expense was $207 million in 2025, up $4 million, or 2%, from $203 million in 2024. The filing describes this line as mainly personnel costs for support staff and outsourcing. Klarna says costs rose more slowly than the business, with volumes up 32% and transactions up 25%.

The big drop came earlier. In 2024, this expense fell $37 million, or 15%, from $240 million in 2023, which Klarna put down mainly to lower customer service costs.

So the claimed $59 million in AI savings did not show up as a lower bill in 2025. Klarna's case is that support costs rose only 2% while volumes grew 32%. That's a fair argument, but it's a different claim from cutting cost.

What's changed

The numbers are now in an SEC filing rather than a press release or a TV interview. The AI's share of chats rose from two-thirds to 80%. Headcount kept falling, and Klarna says it will fall further. But support spending is no longer shrinking, and the filing doesn't say how much now goes to human agents, including the freelance pilot Klarna started in 2025.

What went wrong

Savings don't match the expense line. About $59 million claimed, while customer service and operations cost rose 2%.
Self-measured quality. Satisfaction and the 850-agent figure are Klarna's own estimates.
Inconsistent baselines. Human handling time was 11 minutes in the 2024 release and 12 in the filing.
What we don't know yet: what the AI system costs to run, how many human and freelance agents Klarna now uses, and complaint rates for AI-handled chats.

Our follow-up question for Klarna

How much of the $207 million spent on customer service and operations in 2025 went to human agents, including freelancers and outsourcers, and how much to running the AI?

Later developments (added Oct. 2026)

Klarna's second-quarter 2026 results, released Aug. 18, show customer service and operations expense of $58 million, up from $51 million a year earlier, while revenue rose 27% to $1.042 billion. (Klarna Q2 2026 results)

Sources

Klarna Group plc, Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended Dec. 31, 2025, filed Feb. 26, 2026. sec.gov
Klarna, “Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month,” Feb. 27, 2024. klarna.com
Klarna Group plc, “Klarna Reports Second Quarter 2026 Results,” Aug. 18, 2026 (Form 6-K, Exhibit 99.1). sec.gov
Earlier in this series: Part 1. /case/klarna-ai-customer-service-hiring-freeze · Part 2. /case/klarna-ai-customer-service-humans-return

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