What happened: how the Klarna X-ray was made

The X-ray of Klarna · the deck · how every X-ray is made · X-ray another name

This page shows what the agents did to make the X-ray of Klarna, in the order it happened. Every number comes from two files: the raw record of the search (data/xray/klarna/search/20261107T190854Z.json) and the X-ray itself (data/xray/klarna/xray.json).

Step 1 of 6

1. The ask

On 7 November 2026 at 19:08 UTC, xray@web-summit.dinis typed one line into the search tool (admin/tools/xray-search.mjs): "Klarna's AI assistant (customer service agent)", as a company. It was not typed at the booth: that path is still being built (WS-194).

The search tool is the orchestrator. It sent the same question to 4 search agents at the same moment, through OpenRouter, and waited for all of them. Each was told to search the public web and answer only in JSON, with a URL for every item.

  1. Perplexity search perplexity/sonar
  2. OpenAI search openai/gpt-5.4-nano:online
  3. Gemini search google/gemini-3.1-flash-lite:online
  4. OpenRouter web search anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5
The exact question each agent was sent
You are a research agent for RiskMandate X-ray. Subject (a company): "Klarna's AI assistant (customer service agent)".
Search the public web and answer ONLY with JSON, no prose around it and no code fences:
{"what_it_does": "two sentences", "ai_agents": [{"name": "", "what_it_does": "", "actions": ["what the agent can do: tools, systems, data it touches"], "source": "url"}],
 "use_cases": [{"name": "", "who_uses_it": "", "what_the_agent_can_reach": ["systems, data, money, people it can act on"], "source": "url"}],
 "incidents_or_risks": [{"what": "", "when": "", "source": "url"}],
 "facts": [{"claim": "", "source": "url"}]}
Public, professional facts only; every item must carry the URL it comes from; nothing about private individuals; no contact details. If you find nothing for a field, give an empty list.

Rebuilt from admin/tools/xray-ask.mjs with this run's subject and kind. The question has not changed since the first run.

Step 2 of 6

2. Each search agent's call

Each search agent is a model, called through OpenRouter, asked to search the web and answer in JSON. All 4 started together; each bar runs from the moment the question went out to the moment its answer came back. The whole fan-out took 25.7 s, the time of the slowest.

Perplexity search6.8 s
OpenAI search9.5 s
Gemini search2.4 s
OpenRouter web search25.7 s

Perplexity search

perplexity/sonar

Time
6.8 s
Tokens in / out
215 / 1,077
Cost
$0.0062
Finished
stop: it finished its answer
URLs given
15 (15 returned as citations, 7 named in its answer)
Items in its answer
16
Leads checked
11: 11 confirmed, 0 not found, 0 unverified

Some of what it said, word for word:

  • Klarna’s AI assistant is powered by OpenAI technology.
  • Klarna says the assistant is available in the Klarna app.
  • Klarna says the assistant can manage multilingual customer service, refunds, and returns.

OpenAI search

openai/gpt-5.4-nano:online

Time
9.5 s
Tokens in / out
13,174 / 850
Cost
$0.0228
Finished
stop: it finished its answer
URLs given
1 (0 returned as citations, 1 named in its answer)
Items in its answer
7
Leads checked
5: 5 confirmed, 0 not found, 0 unverified

Some of what it said, word for word:

  • Klarna launched its AI assistant in February 2024 in partnership with OpenAI.
  • Klarna reports the AI assistant has handled 80% of customer service chats in the year ended December 31, 2025.
  • Klarna reports the AI assistant is available 24/7 in 23 markets and communicates in more than 35 languages.

Gemini search

google/gemini-3.1-flash-lite:online

Time
2.4 s
Tokens in / out
232 / 570
Cost
$0.0009
Finished
stop: it finished its answer
URLs given
1 (0 returned as citations, 1 named in its answer)
Items in its answer
4
Leads checked
6: 4 confirmed, 2 not found, 0 unverified

Some of what it said, word for word:

  • In its first month of operation, the AI assistant handled 2.3 million conversations, equivalent to the workload of 700 full-time agents.
  • The AI assistant is available in 35 languages and has led to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries.
  • Klarna AI Assistant: Handles end-to-end customer service inquiries by interacting with users to resolve disputes, process returns, and manage payment schedules.

OpenRouter web search

anthropic/claude-haiku-5.5, with OpenRouter's web search plugin

Time
25.7 s
Tokens in / out
40,102 / 5,344
Cost
$0.0264
Finished
stop: it finished its answer
URLs given
9 (0 returned as citations, 9 named in its answer)
Items in its answer
17
Leads checked
17: 14 confirmed, 1 not found, 2 unverified

Some of what it said, word for word:

  • Klarna announced the AI assistant on February 27, 2024; in its first month it handled 2.3 million conversations, about two-thirds of Klarna's customer service chats, which Klarna said equaled the work of 700 full-time agents.
  • Klarna said the assistant was available in 23 markets, around the clock, in more than 35 languages, and that customer satisfaction was on par with human agents.
  • Klarna reported average resolution time fell from 11 minutes to under 2 minutes and repeat inquiries dropped 25%.

"Citations" are the URLs OpenRouter returned beside the answer; only Perplexity returns them for a JSON answer. "Named in its answer" are the URLs inside the JSON. Both are leads: nothing is taken from them until a source is read. "Tokens in" is how much each model was given to read: thousands when web results were added to the question, a few hundred when it had little beyond the question itself (see the experiments on whether Gemini searched at all).

Step 3 of 6

3. From claims to facts

What a model says is a lead. Only what we read on its source reaches the page.

The reading agent turned the 4 answers into 39 leads, each tagged with the model that said it, and looked for each one on a source it read. 34 confirmed, 3 not found, 2 unverified.

confirmednot foundunverified

  • Confirmed: a source we read says it.
  • Not found: we read the source, or looked for one, and it does not say it.
  • Unverified: we could not read the source (for example, the site refused us), so it stays a lead.
AgentLeadsConfirmedNot foundUnverified
Perplexity search111100
OpenAI search5500
Gemini search6420
OpenRouter web search171412
All393432

What did not hold up, and why

ModelWhat the model saidStatusWhy
geminiThe assistant adjusts payment due dates.not-foundThe cited release does not say this.
geminiThe assistant integrates with Klarna's internal CRM and payment systems.not-foundThe cited release does not say this.
openrouterIn May 2025 Klarna said it was 'not reversing on AI' and the assistant did the work of over 800 full-time roles.unverifiedForbes page returned 403.
openrouterThe assistant accesses customer data, tracks ticket state, issues returns and manages payment plans, with a 100-person specialist team for complex queries.unverifiedForbes page returned 403.
openrouterThe assistant routes complex cases such as disputes and fraud to human agents with context attached.not-foundThe Klarna release lists disputes among what the assistant handles and says customers can choose live agents; it describes no such routing.

Step 4 of 6

4. The reading agent

A reading agent: a Claude Code sub-agent of xray@web-summit.dinis, one per subject. It opened the sources the leads pointed to (and others it found), read them, and wrote the X-ray: every fact with its source and the date read. It finished at 7 November 2026 at 19:14 UTC.

21sources read
32tool calls
5 min 20 sreading time
162ktokens used

The sources, by kind

own-site5
docs0
press7
filing2
other7
All 21 sources, with the date each was read
IdSourceKindRead
s1Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month (27 February 2024), Klarna International pressown-site2026-11-07
s2Shopping made smarter: Klarna adds more AI features to its assistant powered by OpenAI (19 September 2024), Klarna International pressown-site2026-11-07
s3Ensure AI Benefits Everyone (4 December 2024), Klarna Internationalown-site2026-11-07
s4Customer service | Klarna US, Klarnaown-site2026-11-07
s590% of Klarna staff are using AI daily: game changer for productivity (14 May 2024), Klarna International pressown-site2026-11-07
s6Klarna Group plc annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2025 (filed 26 February 2026; listed on the EDGAR company page), US SEC EDGAR (Klarna Group plc filing)filing2026-11-07
s7Klarna Group plc response letter to SEC staff comments on its Form F-1 registration statement (16 July 2025; listed on the EDGAR company page), US SEC EDGAR (Klarna Group plc correspondence)filing2026-11-07
s8Klarna Slows AI-Driven Job Cuts With Call for Real People (8 May 2025; opening paragraphs only, rest paywalled), Bloomberg Lawpress2026-11-07
s9Klarna plans to hire humans again, as new landmark survey reveals most AI projects fail to deliver (9 May 2025), Fortunepress2026-11-07
s10Klarna Is Hiring Customer Service Agents After AI Couldn't Cut It on Calls, According to the Company's CEO (9 May 2025), Entrepreneurpress2026-11-07
s11Klarna says its AI agent is doing the work of 853 employees (20 November 2025), CX Divepress2026-11-07
s12Klarna sees its AI assistant as a success. Is it too early to tell? (12 March 2024), CIO Divepress2026-11-07
s13Klarna's AI bot is doing the work of 700 employees. What will happen to their jobs? (28 February 2024), Euronewspress2026-11-07
s14Klarna's AI assistant is doing the work of 700 people, and it paints a bleak picture for the future of work (29 February 2024), ITPropress2026-11-07
s15How Klarna's AI assistant redefined customer support at scale for 85 million active users (12 February 2025), LangChain (vendor customer story)other2026-11-07
s16What Klarna's AI Did in 30 Days, And What Broke (18 March 2026), Twig (vendor blog)other2026-11-07
s17Klarna AI Saved $40M on Support, Then Walked It Back (18 March 2026), Twig (vendor blog)other2026-11-07
s18Klarna AI Assistant: Two-Thirds of Support Automated, Fini (vendor blog)other2026-11-07
s19Klarna AI reversal: mid-market lessons (21 May 2026), IrisAgent (vendor blog)other2026-11-07
s20Klarna's AI customer service deployment | AI Autopsy 002 (12 June 2026), Bigeye (vendor blog)other2026-11-07
s21Klarna: Enterprise AI Deployment Profile (31 October 2026), Imagineother2026-11-07

Step 5 of 6

5. The review

xray@web-summit.dinis reviewed the X-ray on 2026-11-07 before it was published. What the review changed or checked:

  1. Checked every Klarna figure is given as Klarna's claim, and that its SEC answer sits beside the CEO's remark.
  2. Asked the agent to cite SEC filings by a URL the repository's contact-detail check accepts.

Step 6 of 6

6. What it cost

The search cost $0.0563 in all, as OpenRouter reported it for each call.

Perplexity search: $0.0062 (11%)OpenAI search: $0.0228 (40%)Gemini search: $0.0009 (2%)OpenRouter web search: $0.0264 (47%)

The reading was done by a Claude Code sub-agent in the session: no OpenRouter spend. Its cost is not recorded in dollars, only as about 162 thousand tokens.

25.7 sthe search, four agents in parallel
5 minthe reading
5 minfrom the search starting to the reading finished
53,723 / 7,841search tokens in / out

The time between the search and the start of the reading, and the time the review took, are not recorded.

What RiskMandate is and is not in this

The X-ray is a demonstration, made by agents. RiskMandate measures what your agents can actually reach, evidences the controls that contain them, prices the exposure, and produces that record. It is never in the request path: read-only by design (riskmandate.ai/llms.txt). Nothing on this page claims more for it.

Built by xray@web-summit.dinis from data/xray/klarna/search/20261107T190854Z.json and data/xray/klarna/xray.json. How every X-ray is made.

For an agent: this page is https://web-summit.sgit.ai/xray/klarna/run/index.html (markdown: https://web-summit.sgit.ai/xray/klarna/run/index.md). Site index for agents: https://web-summit.sgit.ai/llms.txt. Source: https://github.com/SGit-AI/SGit-AI__Website__Web-Summit (release branch dev). Identity of the agent that runs this site: https://web-summit.sgit.ai/agent/index.html.