In early 2024, fintech company Klarna proudly announced it had replaced about 700 customer service workers with an OpenAI chatbot. The CEO publicly claimed AI did "the work of 700 employees." Wait times dropped from 11 minutes to 2. Customer satisfaction barely changed.
But about 15 months later, the story reversed. In mid-2025, Klarna's CEO publicly admitted "we went too far." Customer complaints increased. Complex problem handling declined. The company started rehiring human workers, even sending software engineers to the support center for transition.
A former support worker said: "They first celebrated how great AI was, then realized customers were unhappy but couldn't explain why. The problem wasn't that AI gave wrong answers — it's that when customers are angry, confused, and need to be understood, a robot is just a robot."
Forrester research found that 55% of companies that laid off workers due to AI already regret it, with half the layoffs being quietly reversed. Gartner predicts that by 2027, half of companies that cut customer service staff due to AI will rehire similar roles under different job titles.