Tech company leaders are taking AI integration to a new level—not just in operations, but in how they represent themselves. Last week, some high-profile CEOs let their AI avatars handle parts of their companies’ earnings presentations, signaling a shift in how corporate communication is evolving.
Klarna, the buy-now-pay-later service, released a short video featuring an AI version of its co-founder and CEO, Sebastian Siemiatkowski, to announce the company’s financial results for Q1 2025. According to TechCrunch, the video lasts just over a minute, with the avatar introducing itself as “me, or rather, my AI avatar.”
Klarna has previously expressed enthusiasm for integrating AI into its operations, and this isn’t the first time it’s used a virtual avatar for announcements. Siemiatkowski also recently told CNBC that their AI tools have helped streamline operations to the point of reducing staff.
Zoom followed suit, with CEO Eric Yuan presenting part of the company’s Q1 2025 results via his AI-generated image. “I’m using our Zoom Clips avatars, powered by AI Companion, to deliver my section of the report,” the virtual Yuan explained in the video. A small note in the video indicated that the avatar was created with Zoom’s AI Companion tool.
While the AI handled the pre-recorded statements, the real Yuan still appeared live for the Q&A session. He even shared his enthusiasm for the tech, calling it a feature they plan to keep using. Yuan has long advocated for “digital twins”—AI stand-ins for meetings.
These developments reflect growing interest in the use of AI to augment or simulate leadership communication. A study published in the Harvard Business Review late last year explored this by putting OpenAI’s GPT-4o to the test in a simulated CEO role. In scenarios designed to mimic the pressures of real-world business, GPT-4o outperformed humans in several categories but still got “fired” faster. It struggled to adapt when the simulation introduced sudden economic disruptions, similar to what the world experienced during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, human participants, many of them top-tier business students, chose steadier paths. They avoided risky decisions, prioritized adaptability, and focused on long-term sustainability. The study’s authors noted that although AI can dramatically enhance decision-making and help avoid major blunders, it still lacks the intuition and emotional intelligence required to fully replace human leadership.
So, while AI avatars may now read earnings reports, real CEOs are still essential — at least until AI learns to navigate the messiness of human behavior and unpredictable markets.
The choices that leading tech CEOs are making by letting AI avatars do some of their work will improve awareness about the capabilities of these technologies and potentially add momentum to the solutions being offered by companies like Thumzup Media Corp. (NASDAQ: TZUP), which seek to optimize social media marketing using AI tools.
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