Latest news with #TheTimesTech
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CEO Says AI Will Replace So Many Jobs That It'll Cause a Major Recession
The CEO of layaway startup Klarna is claiming that AI is coming for your white-collar jobs — even though his own experiments with replacing human workers with AI were a bust. Speaking to The Times Tech podcast, the Sweden-based CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski admitted that adoption of the technology will result in "implication[s] for white-collar jobs" that include, but are not limited to, "at least a recession in the short term." "Unfortunately, I don't see how we could avoid it, with what's happening from a technology perspective," the CEO said in reference to job loss and a recession. On that part, unfortunately, he may be right: we've been careening headlong towards a recession for a while now, and unemployment rates — affected, no doubt, by AI-obsessed CEOs like Siemiatkowski laying people off in droves — are a huge factor. Still, those are bold words coming from this particular Swedish CEO, considering that just a few weeks ago, he admitted to Bloomberg that he's looking to rehire for some of the 700 customer service positions he fired in favor of AI in 2024. The reason? Because, as Siemiatkowski acknowledged, the AIs perform at a "lower quality" than human workers. Despite prematurely pulling the AI trigger in his own business, the "buy now, pay later" CEO insists the technology will get there. "I feel like I have an email almost every day from some CEO of a tech or a large company that says we also see opportunities to become more efficient and we would like to compare notes," he told The Times Tech. "If I just take all of those emails and add up the amount of jobs in those emails, it's considerable." Were Futurism to stake our beliefs by a similar metric, we, too would believe that AI replacing human labor is inevitable. In this writer's inbox alone, there are dozens of similar pitches from companies and so-called "experts" seeking to get our attention from this week alone — and hundreds more where that came from, should we be curious to look. With AI's present-day capabilities, those emails read as little more than junk mail — but it makes sense that a tech CEO who made his fortune on financial promises would see things a bit differently. Like other AI boosters, Siemieatkowski added that eventually, the "value of that human touch will increase" and that flesh-and-blood workers will "provide a much higher quality type of service" — after learning new skills, which may or may not become obsolete at some vague point in the future. Siemieatkowski is, perhaps more than anyone else, the platonic ideal of an AI-boosting CEO — and unfortunately, there are lots of others who will take this kind of prognostication as gospel. More on clueless CEOs: Duolingo CEO Expresses Astonishment That People Were Mad When He Bragged About Replacing Workers With AI
Miami Herald
11-06-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Klarna CEO sounds the alarm on a growing problem
When one door closes, another one opens. We all have heard of that saying, commonly attributed to Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor, scientist, and engineer credited with patenting the first practical telephone. It essentially means that when we lose one opportunity, another, and perhaps better, one is waiting for us. The trouble is, we usually focus more on what is lost, instead of what could be gained. Don't miss the move: Subscribe to TheStreet's free daily newsletter For example, when I lost my previous job, where I was miserable for years but didn't the guts to quit, I felt both devastated and relieved. About three months later, I got this amazing opportunity, which I would never have sought if the previous door wasn't closed. With new technological advancements, many businesses are shutting down. A few examples include print media being replaced by online journalism, many brick-and-mortar bookstores closing after online bookstore giant Amazon launched, and Uber, Lyft, and other ride-sharing apps affecting traditional taxi businesses. Technology has been and will continue to change the world. For some, this might sound scary because of undesired consequences. Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski raised these fears when he sounded the alarm on possible concerns with AI development. Image source: Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images Klarna Group is a Swedish fintech company that provides online financial services, popularly known as "buy now, pay later" (BNPL). Since its launch in 2005, the company expanded into banking, marketing, and commerce infrastructure. Siemiatkowski, as a recent guest on The Times Tech podcast, revealed that AI development will mean huge changes for certain roles. "There will be an implication for white-collar jobs," he said, adding that advancements like AI may lead to at least a recession in the short term. "Unfortunately, I don't see how we could avoid that, with what's happening from a technology perspective." Related: Nvidia's latest project may supercharge quantum computing Siemiatkowski has always openly shared his thoughts, often speaking more candidly than other tech leaders regarding AI's potential to kill some jobs. "I want to be honest, I want to be fair, and I want to tell what I see so that society can start [making] preparations," he said. However, the CEO believes in the long run, the change won't necessarily be bad. He also stressed that the reduction in white-collar jobs should lead to better pay and more appreciation for blue-collar jobs. He explained that "if you look at the factory workers today, lorry drivers, waiters, chefs, salaries are going up at a pretty good rate." Siemiatkowski predicts that the demand for those positions will increase. More technology: Palantir gets great news from the PentagonAnalyst has blunt words on Trump's iPhone tariff plansOpenAI teams up with legendary Apple exec Klarna also recently started hiring more human workers, which sparked a debate on whether the company is walking back claims that AI will eliminate positions. However, Siemiatkowskitold the crowd at London SXSW that"two things can be true at the same time." He pointed out that AI doesn't mean there won't be opportunities for real people to work at Klarna. "We think offering human customer service is always going to be a VIP thing," he said, noting that people are now paying more for clothing stitching by hand rather than by machine. In 2024, Klarna's revenue reached $2.81 billion with a net profit of $21 million, marking its first profitable year after heavy losses in previous periods. In 2022, Klarna's valuation dropped from $45.6 billion to $6.7 billion but has since rebounded to $14.6 billion. In March, the tech powerhouse revealed it is preparing for an Initial Public Offering (IPO), targeting a valuation of $15 billion, reported CNBC. Related: Google resolves major privacy issue In April 2025, the company postponed its IPO plans in response to U.S. tariff developments. The following month it disclosed disappointing earnings results for the first quarter of the year with a net loss of $99 million, two times the $47 million loss from the same period the year before. Klarna attributed the loss to restructuring, depreciation, and share-based payments. The company made a big bet on AI, replacing 700 humans with a chatbot. Over the last two years, it reduced the number of employees from 5,500 to 3,000, boosting revenue per employee and lowering costs. Related: Veteran fund manager unveils eye-popping S&P 500 forecast The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
India Today
09-06-2025
- Business
- India Today
Klarna CEO says AI could cause a white-collar job crisis and recession
When Klarna announced in 2024 that its AI assistant could handle the work of 700 customer service agents, it made headlines as one of the earliest real-world examples of large-scale job automation. Now, a year later, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski is raising the alarm himself: artificial intelligence might not just be replacing roles, it could be putting the global economy at risk. Speaking on The Times Tech podcast, Siemiatkowski said, "There will be an implication for white-collar jobs," warning that such a shift "usually leads to at least a recession in the short term." Siemiatkowski added: "Unfortunately, I don't see how we could avoid that, with what's happening from a technology perspective."advertisementKlarna, best known for its "buy now, pay later" services, has been at the forefront of AI adoption. The company partnered early with OpenAI to roll out an assistant that has now handled over 2.3 million customer queries. The automation helped the company reduce its headcount from 5,500 to 3,000 employees over the last two years. While the move boosted Klarna's revenue per employee and lowered costs, it also highlighted a difficult truth: AI doesn't just improve efficiency; it removes the need for humans in many has been among the few tech leaders willing to speak openly about AI's potential to eliminate jobs. "I want to be honest, I want to be fair, and I want to tell what I see so that society can start taking preparations," he But in a candid speech at Klarna's headquarters in May, the CEO admitted the company may have overcorrected. "From a brand perspective, a company perspective, I just think it's so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will always be a human if you want," he said. And so, last month, Klarna decided to shift back a little. The company started recruiting human agents again, testing a flexible, remote support model where agents can log in as needed – much like ride-share drivers do."Two things can be true at the same time," Siemiatkowski told a London SXSW audience last week. He believes AI is still crucial for handling repetitive or "boring" tasks, but human interaction remains essential for empathy and nuanced balancing act reflects a wider industry trend. Tech leaders like Google's Sundar Pichai and Microsoft's Satya Nadella have all noted that AI now writes around 30 per cent of their companies' code – and in the case of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the company may soon (in about 18 months) start to use AI to write 100 per cent of code. Zuckerberg has also said that AI is already equal to a mid-level engineer and could soon outperform even top coders. OpenAI's Sam Altman recently claimed that AI generates 50 per cent of the code at some firms, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that by the end of this year, all code will likely be companies like Duolingo and Shopify are laying off human staff and replacing them with AI. Shopify now requires managers to prove that a task can't be done by AI before hiring a not all industry voices believe the outcome has to be dire. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, advised teenagers to embrace AI as the defining tech of their generation. At Google I/O, he said the industry could create "more valuable, usually more interesting jobs," even if old ones disappear. He emphasised skills like adaptability and creativity as essential for future-proof Siemiatkowski, the short-term outlook remains grim. He believes CEOs have been downplaying the economic risk posed by AI. "I don't want to be one of them," he said.
Business Insider
08-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
Klarna CEO warns AI may cause a recession as the technology comes for white-collar jobs
Speaking on The Times Tech podcast, Sebastian Siemiatkowski said there would be "an implication for white-collar jobs," which he said "usually leads to at least a recession in the short term." "Unfortunately, I don't see how we could avoid that, with what's happening from a technology perspective," he continued. Siemiatkowski, who has long been candid about his belief that AI will come for human jobs, added that AI had played a key role in "efficiency gains" at Klarna and that the firm's workforce had shrunk from about 5,500 to 3,000 people in the last two years as a result. It's not the first time the exec and Klarna have made headlines along these lines. In February 2024, Klarna boasted that its OpenAI-powered AI assistant was doing the work of 700 full-time customer service agents. The company, most famous for its "buy now, pay later" service, was one of the first firms to partner with Sam Altman's company. Later that year, Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg TV that he believed AI was already capable of doing "all of the jobs" that humans do and that Klarna had enacted a hiring freeze since 2023 as it looked to slim down and focus on adopting the technology. However, Siemiatkowski has since dialed back his all-in stance on AI, telling an audience at the firm's Stockholm headquarters in May that his AI-driven customer service cost-cutting efforts had gone too far and that Klarna was planning to now recruit, according to Bloomberg. "From a brand perspective, a company perspective, I just think it's so critical that you are clear to your customer that there will be always a human if you want," he said. In the interview with The Times, Siemiatkowski said he felt that many people in the tech industry, particularly CEOs, tended to "downplay the consequences of AI on jobs, white-collar jobs in particular." "I don't want to be one of them," he said. "I want to be honest, I want to be fair, and I want to tell what I see so that society can start taking preparations." Some of the top leaders in AI, however, have been ringing the alarm lately, too. Anthropic's leadership has been particularly outspoken about the threat AI poses to the human labor market. The company's CEO, Dario Amodei, recently said that AI may eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. "We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Amodei said. "I don't think this is on people's radar." Similarly, his colleague, Mike Krieger, Anthropic's chief product officer, said he is hesitant to hire entry-level software engineers over more experienced ones who can also leverage AI tools. The silver lining is that AI also brings the promise of better and more fulfilling work, Krieger said. Humans, he said, should focus on "coming up with the right ideas, doing the right user interaction design, figuring out how to delegate work correctly, and then figuring out how to review things at scale — and that's probably some combination of maybe a comeback of some static analysis or maybe AI-driven analysis tools of what was actually produced."
