Layoffs and goodbyes

Is Klarna showing the future of SAAS Apps?

Leading global payment provider, Klarna is:

• Planning to lay off 50% of its workforce and replace them with Gen AI implementation

• is letting of Salesforce and also Workday SAAS apps

CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said that the company is shutting down its software as a service provider (SaaS) Salesforce and within a few weeks will shut down Workday.

There are large ongoing internal initiatives that are a combination of AI, standardization, and simplification. As an example, we just shut down Salesforce. Within a few weeks, we will shut down Workday. We are shutting down a lot of our SaaS providers, as we are able to consolidate," said Siemiatkowski on a conference call (via)

Layoffs

Klarna is doubling down on AI implementation. The company plans to leverage advanced machine learning algorithms and natural language processing to automate a wide range of tasks, from customer service to credit risk assessment. This move is aimed at increasing efficiency, reducing operational costs, and potentially improving the accuracy of decision-making processes (via).

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Too early to say whether Klarna’s actions are a norm or an exception - but given the current sentiment against bloated SAAS, looks like we are at the end of SAAS 1.0?

What would AI + SAAS opportunities look like? I’d love to hear from you if you have a strong take on it.

Is it service as a software? Well, VCs would love to think so but look at the market reality - very few projects are moving from PoC to production and even giant service providers like Infy are struggling with this.