Klarna and Zoom just unveiled AI-generated CEO avatars, which have sparked a fresh debate about the future of executive leadership, investor relations, and workplace communication. Klarna’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski and Zoom’s Eric Yuan now use digital twins to deliver company updates and earnings calls, pioneering how artificial intelligence can reshape the face — and voice — of business.
Is this merely a fleeting stunt, or the dawn of a new era in corporate communication?
The avatar experiments: Klarna and Zoom lead the charge
Klarna’s May 2025 quarterly report was delivered not by Siemiatkowski himself but by a digital twin trained on hours of his previous appearances. Though the avatar wasn’t perfect — viewers noticed awkward blinking and lip-syncing—it proved convincing enough to spark both admiration and scepticism. Beyond being a PR move, Klarna used it to reinforce its AI-first identity, showcase its $701 million quarterly revenue, and highlight its fourth consecutive profitable quarter.
But behind the AI optimism lies financial complexity. Klarna’s Q1 2025 also saw a $92 million pretax loss, nearly double the previous year’s, due to one-off costs like share-based compensation and IPO preparations. While the avatar impressed audiences, the numbers reveal a nuanced reality: AI transformation doesn’t guarantee instant profitability.
Zoom’s Eric Yuan has long maintained that “digital twins” could eventually handle up to 90% of office tasks. In 2025, he tested this vision, using his own AI avatar, created through the new Zoom Clips tool, to deliver prepared remarks to investors. Unlike Klarna’s one-off experiment, Zoom’s approach is systematic: Clips enables anyone to create a custom avatar from a 30-second video for a $12 monthly premium.
Zoom’s AI Companion features operate in over 700,000 accounts, driving 3% year-over-year revenue growth and raising annual guidance to $4.6 billion. Yuan’s avatar demonstration wasn’t just a technical showcase – it signalled Zoom’s evolution from a pandemic-era video tool to a sophisticated AI productivity platform.
Efficiency, hype, and hybrid workforces
Klarna’s embrace of AI runs deep. Its OpenAI-powered customer service assistant handles 2.3 million conversations monthly, saving $40 million annually and replacing 700 positions. The company has cut marketing costs by $10 million using generative AI tools like Midjourney and DALL-E, with 87% of staff using AI daily.
Yet Klarna’s workforce has shrunk by 40% since 2022, from 5,000 to 3,000 employees. The company now tests a flexible “Uber model” for customer service, offering $41/hour remote work to students and rural workers, acknowledging that while AI is powerful, it can’t replace human empathy in complex cases.
Zoom’s strategy focuses on augmentation rather than staff reduction. Following ChatGPT’s rise, Zoom tripled its AI engineering team and invested heavily in GPUs. Its AI Companion now automates meeting notes, summaries, and follow-ups, cutting post-meeting work by 25%. Yuan’s vision is clear: “AI can’t replace a handshake at Starbucks,” but it can create more time for meaningful human interaction.
The path forward: Trend or temporary stunt?
The avatar trend is gaining momentum beyond Klarna and Zoom cases. With $135 million in funding, Soul Machines builds digital humans for BMW and Vodafone. Microsoft and Samsung are developing their synthetic persona tools. CEO avatars may soon become table stakes for tech companies — a digital “proof of AI” for investors and talent alike.
Yet scepticism remains. Analysts caution that AI-optimised messaging could distort investor perceptions. Speech Craft Analytics found that AI-generated earnings calls sometimes score higher on sentiment analysis than underlying fundamentals warrant, raising authenticity and transparency concerns.
Klarna’s avatar, despite the company’s widespread AI adoption, still struggles with the “uncanny valley,” showing awkward blinking and imperfect lip-syncing. Zoom’s avatars remain limited to pre-recorded clips to avoid real-time issues. Meanwhile, competitors like Synthesia (backed by Nvidia) pursue avatars that mimic micro-expressions and emotional nuance, though the technology remains imperfect.
The rise of AI avatars poses crucial questions: If a CEO’s digital twin can deliver earnings, what else might be automated? Will investors and employees trust synthetic spokespersons? Klarna’s initiative drew mixed LinkedIn reactions, with some praising the innovation while others worried about eroding trust and blurring lines between real and artificial leadership.
As Microsoft, Salesforce, and others join the race, the question isn’t whether AI avatars will become standard, but how companies will use them to balance innovation, trust, and transparency in the years ahead.
