Are fintech CEOs ready to be honest about AI replacing human workers? Sebastian Siemiatkowski, Swedish CEO of the buy-now-payer-later (BNPL) fintech company Klarna, candidly told the New York Times that he believes AI automation will take over all human jobs. While tech executives tend to use euphemistic language about the impact of AI on the workforce, instead marketing it as a complementary tool to human labor, Siemiatkowski completely rejects this narrative.

What does Siemiatkowski’s vision look like? The CEO used automating tasks in Klarna’s marketing, legal, and customer service departments to reduce the company’s workforce from 5k to 4k, and expects to dole out further cuts in the future thanks to the alleged USD 10 mn he saved in the process. But instead of platitudes promising that genAI will be a boon to employee workloads, Siemiatkowski openly (and bluntly) acknowledges the reality of future job displacement, and challenges the idea that new roles will easily replace those lost to AI tools. Siemiatkowski told Bloomberg TV in December that his company “essentially” stopped hiring a year ago in favor of AI, all to enable massive workforce reduction.

But the Klarna CEO isn’t the only one championing the raw truth: Arvind Krishna, CEO of tech giant IBM, also once said that AI could push his company to slow or pause hiring, more specifically for back-office jobs like HR, which constitute roughly 10% of the workforce. This comes as a bit of a counterstatement to the IBM chief executive’s previous statements in 2023 claiming that AI will “help tackle the kind of tasks most people find repetitive, which frees up employees to take on higher-value work.”

A strategic claim ahead of his debut on the stock markets: Siemiatkowski’s brave statements come as part of Klarna’s cost-cutting efforts and a broader plan to attract investors ahead of its anticipated IPO, a former Klarna manager who left the company in 2022 told NYT, which came as a result of concerns that Klarna had lost its shine among investors and the media. Klarna first filed to go public in the US in November, and plans to list in Q1 2025. The IPO is expected to value the company between USD 15 to 20 bn.

But critics find that his statements might stand a bit over the top: Klarna has continued hiring employees despite its chief executive’s statements, which leaves critics to stipulate about his statements’ credibility. Tech-focused website TechCrunch investigated through the Swedish BNPL’s job listings two days after the company reportedly said they stopped hiring, and they found more than 50 openings in a variety of positions.

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