One Company's AI Now Does 700 Jobs

Klarna's public case study; Legal issues heat up between news publishers and AI companies

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The AI Exchange
February 29, 2024

Welcome to another edition of the best damn newsletter in AI.

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Here's what we're covering today:

  • Legal concerns continue to grow around content rights between news publishers and AI model providers

  • Klarna’s big public case study and what it means for the impact of AI

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Let’s get to it! 👇

THE TOP NEWS

TODAY’S PERSPECTIVE

The biggest ROI of Generative AI case study we’ve seen yet

It feels like the world just learned that AI can do the job of 700 people.

Klarna, a leading “buy now pay later” company, made AI headlines this week with possibly the largest “ROI of AI” case study we’ve seen yet.

If you haven’t heard of Klarna — their products help you make big purchases on a payment plan. And one of the hardest parts of that business model is the volume of customer support required to give people a great experience.

But their new AI chatbot is helping them hit unprecedented scale.

  • 2/3rds of Klarna’s customer support is now fully handled by their AI chatbot

  • Customers are getting issues resolved in 1/5th of the time

  • Previously that volume of work was done by 700 agents

  • They estimate it will drive $40 million USD in profit this year alone

Oh and the product has only been live for 1 month.

And what did the CEO say about all of this?

Basically… Does generative AI have your attention yet?

Here’s their full write up, and when you read it, you’ll see a sober message:

… Society and politicians should seriously consider the impact that generative AI will have in the coming years and decades on employment and work. (and subtly, that’s part of the reason they published it)…

The Klarna story isn’t unique.

This same conversation is happening behind corporate closed doors in every industry and every market. Scott Galloway covered this in a recent comparison between AI and Ozempic…

“Everyone’s on it, and nobody’s on it”.

AI is coming in a big way in 2024. And for every published case study like Klarna’s, trust there are dozens if not hundreds more happening behind closed doors.

*Shoutout to Ken Steward for also sharing the Galloway article with us! 🙏 

LINKS

For your reading list 📚

AI continues coming into the creative world, including supporting more strategic roles...

In case you're wanting a history lesson on chatbots...

AI is still coming in hot to the enterprise...

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