How Klarna uses AI

Klarna, a Swedish buy now pay later and payments provider, describes in its annual report on Form 20-F for 2025 an underwriting process built on machine learning credit models. The process is fully automated and gives a new underwriting decision for each transaction in real time, drawing on Klarna's own records of customer history and purchase behavior. The filing ties this to an average of approximately 3.4 million transactions per day made by 118 million active Klarna consumers in 2025, and does not state a result attributed to the models alone.

Klarna announced in February 2024 that its AI assistant built on OpenAI models had been live globally for a month as the first line of its customer service, handling refunds, returns, payment issues, cancellations and disputes in more than 35 languages across 23 markets. In 2025 the company said it had gone too far in replacing people and began recruiting human agents again so that customers can always reach a person; the assistant still handles the majority of inquiries. The record is useful precisely because it shows both the gain and the correction.

Klarna uses generative AI across marketing: an in house copywriting tool (Copy Assistant) for most of its copy, and image generation tools for campaign imagery, while reducing spend on external agencies for translation, production, CRM and social. Klarna says the faster image cycle includes checks for brand consistency, image quality and legal compliance. It attributes a share of its sales and marketing savings to AI.