“How is he doing this?” – Marc Benioff questions Klarna CEO's move to scrap Workday, Salesforce in SaaS ‘consolidation’ drive

Klarna is calling quits on its use of Salesforce and Workday amid a sharpened focus on harnessing AI as the company ramps up adoption of the technology - but Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff appears perplexed at the decision.

CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski confirmed the move in a conference call in late August, according to reports from Seeking Alpha, revealing the decision was prompted by the firm’s current AI strategy as it looks to “consolidate” SaaS providers.

Siemiatkowski noted the company has used AI in-house to create a more ‘agile’ technology stack and no longer needs the two providers.

But in a recent press briefing ahead of Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference, Benioff questioned the decision, pondering how the company has essentially cast aside its need for two widely-used enterprise platforms.

Salesforce provides cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) services, enabling users to manage customer, sales, and marketing data, while Workday’s HR technology is used by thousands of users globally.

“I saw the comments,” he said. “I’ve had several of my friends reach out to him because he hasn’t said where he’s managing his data… how he is managing and sharing this information?

“How is he achieving compliance, governance of his company? What is his institutional memory?”

Benioff questioned whether Siemiatkowski and Klarna had developed a “new type of data management system” or new applications that removed the need for the CRM provider.

Notably, Benioff suggested that this shift raises serious questions over how the buy now, pay later giant is able to maintain visibility over both internal and customer data. Moreover, the move highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of exactly how impactful AI can be within the enterprise.

“I just know from my own perspective at Salesforce that I need to know who my employees are, who my customers are; their transactions, history,” he said. “I think there’s a broad misunderstanding of artificial intelligence and how it relates to data management and applications."

“Humans aren’t going away," Benioff added.

Klarna’s rabid AI focus is gathering pace

Siemiatkowski has emerged as one of the most outspoken proponents of generative AI in recent months, championing the technology’s potential for enterprises to drastically improve productivity while reducing costs and, notably, headcount.

In February this year, the Swedish company unveiled the launch of an AI-powered assistant geared specifically toward customer service operations.

The launch of the tool, developed in collaboration with OpenAI, was a resounding success, allowing Klarna to automate the work of around 700 customer service agents.

More recently, Siemiatkowski waxed lyrical about the efficiencies unlocked by harnessing AI, noting that the company has cut its workforce from 5,000 staff to around 3,800 in the past year.

The firm intends to go even further with this strategy, however, with the eventual goal of cutting its headcount down to around 2,000 workers.