Customer service · Klarna + OpenAIAI assistant handled 2.3M chats in one month — the work of 700 agents
One month after going live globally, Klarna's OpenAI-powered assistant took on two-thirds of customer service chats, matched human CSAT, and cut resolution time from 11 minutes to under 2.
Support operations · Stanford / MIT field studyAI copilots lifted support-agent productivity 15% across 5,172 agents
Brynjolfsson, Li & Raymond studied a staggered rollout of a generative-AI assistant to real customer-support agents. Issues resolved per hour rose 15% on average — with the largest gains for less-experienced staff.
Knowledge work · Harvard / BCG experimentConsultants using GPT-4 finished 12% more tasks, 25% faster, at 40% higher quality
A randomized field experiment with 758 BCG consultants — run with researchers from Harvard, Wharton, MIT and Warwick — measured what happens when knowledge workers get access to frontier AI on real tasks.
Service operations · McKinseyReal gen-AI service deployments cutting handle time and lifting resolution
McKinsey's 2024 review of production gen-AI programs in service operations documents double-digit reductions in average handle time and meaningful lifts in first-contact resolution among disciplined adopters.
–10 to –30%
avg. handle time
+10 pts
first-contact resolution
E-commerce SMB · Pooldoktor (10-person team)AI product consultation lifted revenue per visitor 18.75% — A/B tested over 6 months
A ten-person specialist retailer replaced advice-intensive chat overflow with an AI product consultant. The lift was measured causally in an A/B test averaged over six months, with a 33× ROI.
SME operations · Vanda Coatings (Cardiff)A single SME operator built an AI-powered ERP — and got 5 hrs/week back per team member
A Cardiff coatings SME rebuilt its operations around an AI-assisted ERP, resolving 30,000 data-duplication points and returning five hours a week per team member. Documented by smedigital.ai.
30,000
duplicates resolved
25+ yrs
process knowledge captured