The Scenes

Swedish fintech firm Klarna has evolved from a buy now, pay later venture to an AI-powered payments and e-commerce company. Sebastian Siemiatkowski, co-founder and CEO, is leading the transformation, including talks on partnering with Perplexity, an online search engine enhanced by artificial intelligence. We talked to him about how the hot technology will shake up shopping in an edited conversation below.

The View From Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Q: Klarna has taken the AI ​​revolution seriously with a revamp to TikTok-style content that’s hyper-targeted based on user interests. But another vision of the AI-enabled future is almost the opposite, where people seem to ask large language models what they should buy. Instead of getting an influencer trying to sell them products, the AI ​​lays out the pros and cons of each option and just does the research. How to say Klarna fits in?

A: Both versions you describe are complementary to each other. Our recent Future of Retail report found that 26% of US Gen Zers and Millennials expect the shopping experience to be so customized that AI will eventually do the shopping for them. On the other hand, 85% of consumers still like it speaking with product experts when