Klarna Plans to 'Shut Down SaaS Providers' and Replace Them With Internally Built AI. The Tech World Is Pretty Skeptical

The fintech firm Klarna is severing its relationships with two of the biggest enterprise software providers in favor of automating its services with AI. And the company says it could potentially eliminate more. Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski recently explained the rationale in a conference call, the financial outlet Seeking Alpha reported. Klarna is no longer using Salesforce, a platform that aggregates and packages sales and marketing data for businesses. The company has also removed the HR and hiring platform Workday from its tech stack, a Klarna spokesperson confirmed to Inc. This may be only the beginning of Klarna's automation spree. "We have a number of large internal initiatives that combine AI, standardization, and simplification to enable us to shut down several software-as-a-service providers," said a spokesperson, who did not mention other areas or providers Klarna could eliminate. Klarna, founded in 2005, provides payment processing for e-commerce. The company says it has more than 150 million global active users. Klarna's losses were $241 million last year, according to the company's annual report. That was down from 2022, when the company lost nearly $1 billion. For its half-year earnings of 2024, the company reported a net loss of $32 million. With reports that the company has tapped Goldman Sachs to underwrite its initial public offering, it's possible Klarna's AI push for profitability will make it a better candidate. It's also not the first AI-centered flex made by the Swedish startup. In February, Klarna unveiled an AI-powered assistant for customer service. The firm lauded its product, writing that it performed the work of 700 customer service agents and handled 2.3 million interactions in its first month of operation. The assistant was made in collaboration with OpenAI. Klarna was one of the first clients for OpenAI's enterprise ChatGPT package, and claims that 90 percent of its workforce consult the tool every day to automate various processes on the job. Slashing Workday and Salesforce is part of a broader purge of third-party SaaS providers. Klarna intends to replace the programs with its own, internally built applications, ostensibly crafted on OpenAI's infrastructure. Siemiatkowski reportedly said on the August call: "We are shutting down a lot of our SaaS providers as we are able to consolidate." Siemiatkowski is the chairman of the board at Flat Capital, a Swedish venture firm that counts OpenAI among its portfolio companies. HR technology analyst Josh Bersin is skeptical that the payments company can effectively replace Workday. "Systems like Workday have decades of workflows and complex data structures built in, including payroll, time and attendance," he explained to Inc. "If Klarna wants an engineering team to build all this, they're going to wind up in a black hole of systems features, to say nothing of the user experience." Many others across the tech world are skeptical that Klarna can execute such a coup. Investors and executives argued in social-media posts that Klarna's directive is more of a PR offensive than a technological breakthrough. "Klarna ripping out Salesforce + Workday... even if it's true, is it actually the best use of capital to rebuild in-house? Feels like a massive distraction," wrote financial insights account BuccoCapital on X. "Especially when your business has no path to selling the in-house solution. I'm deeply skeptical the math works," the post continued. "Klarna CEO hooked on free marketing," wrote Ryan Jones, CEO of the flight tracking app Flighty. The most scathing takes suggest Klarna's AI revamp is just bluster as it prepares to go public: Klarna reduced its workforce by 1,200 workers over the past year, and Siemiatkowski hasn't been shy about the need for further downsizing. He told the Financial Times last month that the firm could benefit by reducing its headcount from 3,800 to 2,000 employees. He has insisted downsizing wouldn't slow growth as the company leans into AI. If Klarna goes forward developing its own internal HR platform, it would be succeeding where many of the biggest tech giants have failed, says Bersin. "Google is doing away with their internally developed HR software and Amazon goes through these cycles regularly. Microsoft spends their money on their own products and works in partnership with SAP for all their HR software," Bersin says.