As employers embrace Al, workers fret-and seek input

THE SWEDISH BUY-NOW-PAY-LATER COMPANY KLARNA has become something of a poster child for the potential benefits of generative artificial intelligence.

- KEVIN J. DELANEY

The company relies on AI to create and tailor promotional images and to draft marketing copy, saving millions of dollars. Earlier this year it said an AI chatbot assistant was doing the work of 700 human customer-service agents, which it forecast would boost profits by $40 million this year.

Klarna's approach highlights generative AI's promise for powering businesswide systems, like customer service. It's also helping individual workers with some of the tasks that form their daily work.

U.S. businesses are investing in AI, and they're eager to see such gains. So far, the tools cover some of a worker's tasks, saving time but not significantly impacting the business overall. They can, for example, help computer coders work faster, or save human-resources professionals time by having AI-powered chatbots answer colleagues' questions about benefits.