Fintech and e-commerce platform Klarna is exploring a handful of new features for its AI shopping assistant. Klarna’s AI now works as a chatbot that uses OpenAI’s AI models to speed up shopping and tailor the experience to your preferences. The idea is to turn searching for a product or sale into a conversation, and to tailor Klarna’s recommendations to better match what you like.
Klarna sees its AI chatbot as a kind of personal shopper that you can talk to like a human. If you have specific requests based on certain details about a product or how well it’s rated, the assistant can compile a list that’s more finely tuned than a keyword search. The AI will also compile reviews, map out price changes and otherwise take the initiative in its responses. You can then make the purchase through Klarna’s app.
Even without you making a specific query, the AI will make recommendations for things you might like based on your past history and stated preferences. Klarna described how the AI can offer ideas based on things you buy at a certain point each year or the colors and brands you typically choose for products like clothing and accessories.
If you’re someone who does a lot of research before a purchase, Klarna’s AI tool will speed that up by putting together product comparisons that match your request for price or other aspects. The AI will even break down and compare the positive and negative reasons for buying each option. And if you’re more of the “I don’t know what to buy for an upcoming trip or event” type, you can just ask the AI and it will put together a shopping list before making specific suggestions on what to buy to fit your budget and needs.
“For decades, the tech industry has assumed that the online shopping experience was controlled by a small number of big tech players, leading to underinvestment. That has created an opportunity for companies like Klarna, and we are using AI to challenge the established order,” said David Fock, Chief Product & Design Officer at Klarna. “We have combined the intelligence of LLMs, the knowledge of Pricerunner and the Klarna UX to create a smoother and more intuitive chat-based shopping experience.”
Klarna is an early adopter, but it’s not the only online shopping source integrating AI into its platform. Amazon rolled out the Rufus chatbot earlier this year, which serves much the same role as Klarna’s chatbot. Rufus uses Amazon’s AI models to recommend purchases and provide conversational information about products. Because it’s Amazon, that can include ads, too. This week, the company unveiled a new AI recommendation system that’s more personalized than ever before, with product titles tailored to highlight the aspect of a product you’re currently looking for.
To build its AI assistant, Klarna trained the OpenAI model to know the more than 5.6 million products available. That way, the chatbot is less likely to fall prey to hallucinations and can share accurate costs, availability and delivery options, even if there are cashback options. It builds on the company’s partnership with OpenAI to run customer service, which it quickly scaled to handle the majority of incoming requests, hiring the equivalent of 700 customer service agents and handling more than 2 million conversations in just a few weeks.
“Klarna is leading the way in harnessing the potential of AI to deliver tangible benefits to customers,” said Brad Lightcap, COO of OpenAI. “We’re excited to continue working together and demonstrate the power of AI at scale,”
