The founder and CEO of Klarna, a fintech company preparing for an IPO, recently discussed the decision to move away from Salesforce’s CRM product in favor of their own AI system. Sebastian Siemiatkowski clarified that he doesn’t expect others to follow suit and believes it might actually benefit Salesforce. This decision to develop an in-house AI system based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT gained attention after it was revealed that Klarna replaced 700 full-time contract employees and saved $40 million annually.
Concerns were raised by Salesforce’s Marc Benioff regarding how Klarna manages customer data and compliance. Siemiatkowski addressed these concerns by explaining that Klarna consolidated data from various SaaS systems, including Salesforce, onto their own tech stack utilizing products like Neo4j’s graph database. Despite the shift towards internal development, Klarna doesn’t anticipate other companies to follow the same path of creating AI-centric software.
Siemiatkowski believes the SaaS industry is moving towards consolidation, with fewer companies dominating the market and offering similar solutions like Klarna’s. This debate between building or buying enterprise software is ongoing, and Klarna’s approach serves as an example of a company choosing to develop its own advanced technology rather than relying on external solutions.
