STOCKHOLM, Sweden–Credit unions have another reason to pay attention to Klarna beyond the competition it provides via its buy now, pay later solutions.
The company has also made investments in artificial intelligence to lower its marketing and sales costs by making tasks, such as creating images and to make translating copy more efficient, according to a new report.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Klarna had cut sales and marketing spending by 11% in the first quarter of 2024 while increasing the number of campaigns and updating its collateral marketing materials more frequently. It attributed 37% of that reduction to AI, the equivalent of $10 million in annual savings, the Journal said.
Additional Savings
According to the report, by using generative AI tools such as Midjourney and DALL-E Klarna was able to save $1.5 million on image production costs in the first quarter, while slashing its image development timeline to seven days from six weeks.
In addition, the Journal reported Klarna also said it had decreased by 25% its spending on external marketing suppliers for tasks such as social media, translation and production.
Klarna Chief Marketing Officer David Sandstrom told the Journal its AI-related internal efforts began in November 2022, over the weekend ChatGPT was launched.
“The management team tried it out for the first time. And we came back on Monday and said, ‘Hey guys, have you tried this?’ Everyone had and was like, ‘This is going to change the world’.”
The New Goal
Sandstrom added that at the same time it established a vision to become the “most advanced marketing organization there is. What that means to me is that we become brutally efficient, both in the resources we use but more importantly, in the results that we can create.”
The issue will strike a chord in credit unions, where many have said marketing and content are among the initial areas in which they are seeking to apply AI.
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