2026: the year of human-AI synergy | LinkedIn Post

2026 is shaping up to be the year of human-AI synergy, not AI replacing humans.

You can see this clearly in two places at once: Klarna at scale, and SMEs trying to adopt AI in day-to-day workflows.

In February 2024, Klarna announced that its AI assistant was handling around two-thirds of customer support chats, processing roughly 2.3 million conversations a month and cutting average resolution time from about 11 minutes to under 2 minutes. Hiring for human support roles was paused. On efficiency metrics, it looked like a success.

By May 2025, Klarna changed direction. They restarted hiring human support agents and publicly acknowledged that quality had dropped. Today, Klarna runs a hybrid model: AI handles high-volume, repetitive queries, while humans focus on complex, sensitive, and high-trust situations. The CEO has been explicit that empathy and judgment cannot be automated away.

SMEs are learning the same lesson, just faster and with less PR.

Simple workflows work very well with AI. Repetitive questions, basic triage, standard processes deliver immediate value.

Complex workflows often do not. When AI is forced into deeply integrated, poorly defined processes, it wastes time, confuses teams, and degrades outcomes.

The pattern is consistent across these two studies:

AI is strong where work is predictable and repeatable.
Humans are strong where work requires judgment, context, and empathy.

There is also a people angle that matters.

Support agents do not get job satisfaction from repeating scripts all day. Research consistently shows higher satisfaction when work has variety and feels meaningful. Solving real problems and helping people is what keeps good agents engaged.

This matters for job security concerns because the future is clearly not AI replacing people (because it can't). The future is more nuanced: AI clearing the noise so people can do the work that actually matters.

This makes AI improvements exciting because people can do more of what they are good at, and what they find satisfying.