Klarna Unveils AI-Driven Photo Shopping Tool

Klarna has debuted an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered shopping tool with the help of OpenAI.

The Swedish payments company announced the new feature Wednesday (Oct. 11) as part of a broader rollout of new shopping-related offerings.

The flagship of these new products is the company’s shopping lens, which — using OpenAI technology — lets customers shop by taking a photo of merchandise they like. Within seconds, those items are available for purchase on the Klarna mobile app.

David Sandström, the company’s chief marketing officer, told Reuters in an interview the feature can identify upwards of 10 million products — including electronics, clothing and home decor — and compare prices, retailers and reviews.

He added that Klarna’s AI does not permit the use of images of people’s bodies or faces to address privacy concerns.

Reuters noted that Google’s Lens tool already offers users the ability to shop for products.

“The thing that differentiates us from Google is that our lens is purposefully built for shopping … we do not want people to take images of random things, but rather only products they want to buy,” Sandström said.

Klarna said the shopping lens is available now in its home country, as well as the U.S., U.K., Germany, Norway and Denmark.

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that there’s a desire among consumers for technology like this, according to research from the report “How Connected Devices Enable Multitasking Among Digital-First Consumers.”

That research found that 41% of consumers had an interest in being able to take photos of products they see and get automatically directed to the product page for purchase.

“This feature would eliminate the need for manual searching and make the buying process more efficient,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month. “Similarly, 38% of consumers are interested in virtual shopping technology that allows them to visualize how a purchase would look on them or in their home before making a decision.”

Also Wednesday, Klarna said it was giving shoppers the ability to scan the barcodes of more than 10 million products in stores and instantly get information about that merchandise, including reviews, price comparisons, and variants and colors that might be available online.

“Using the app’s built in camera scanning feature, this empowers consumers to make smart decisions while on the high street — and also pay by scanning a QR code at integrated retailers,” the company said in a news release. This feature is also available in the U.K., U.S., Sweden, Germany, Denmark and Norway.

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