Klarna has launched a new AI-driven photo search feature Credit: Shutterstock / Gary L Hider

Klarna, Swedish pay-now-buy-later giant, has launched a new AI-powered shopping feature using OpenAI’s technology.

The new feature allows shoppers to take a photo of a product for it to instantly show up to buy on the mobile app. According to the company, over 10 million items can be identified with the AI feature. 

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Over 10 million items, including clothes, home decor and electronics can be searched using the new feature, said David Sandström, Klarna’s chief marketing officer.

The feature will not allow any images of faces or bodies to prevent privacy issues, he added. 

Klarna’s dive into AI comes as other start-ups look to integrate the emerging technology to help boost valuations.

The feature is reminiscent of Google Lens, an image recognition technology released in 2017 which allows users to search the web through the use of photographs. 

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Sandström said Klarna’s feature is different from Google’s due to it being “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.

The news comes following Klarna’s net operating income reporting a net loss over the January-June period of $185m.

The company said it aimed to achieve profitability in the second half of 2023. The last time Klarna reported a full-year profit was 2018.

Klarna embarked on a cost-cutting mission in 2022, in the hopes of achieving a profit in late 2023, which involved laying off 10% of its workforce last year.

Klarna co-founder and CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski appeared encouraged by the results, tweeting: “I remember speaking to people last year who were not confident we’d pull it off […] we’ve achieved exactly what we set out to do!”