Kiwi replaced most of its customer support with the AI agent Nathan and laid off hundreds of people
Flight ticket seller Kiwi has laid off hundreds of people since 2024, with the AI agent Nathan now handling 85% of customer support. The cost per request has dropped by tens of percent, and customer satisfaction has risen by 30%, according to the company.
Since 2024, Czech flight ticket seller Kiwi has laid off hundreds of employees and is entrusting an increasing share of customer support to an AI agent named Nathan. According to the company, Nathan independently resolves 85% of traveler requests, with Kiwi considering a case resolved even if the customer does not get back in touch within 24 hours. Only about one percent of customers whose request the AI can handle ask for a human operator in text communication.
The company states that the cost of handling one customer request has dropped by tens of percent, and the rollout of AI has not led to an increase in the technology infrastructure budget, which runs into millions of euros. Since the start of 2024, Kiwi has cut the number of operators working for external partners by more than three-quarters, to approximately 200 people; customer support today is handled by a total of roughly 300 staff. According to the company's internal tests, customers are 30% more satisfied with automated support than with human operators, which CTO Stanislav Komanec attributes mainly to the speed of chat responses.
This year Kiwi laid off a further approximately 250 of its 700 employees and eliminated one level of management to make the whole organization more efficient. The number of bookings grew by more than 50% year on year, which the company does not attribute solely to AI but also to organizational changes and faster product rollout. Last year's net loss fell from more than 9 million euros to 600 thousand euros, and operating profit rose to 15 million euros (approximately 356 million korunas), but the company has not quantified the total savings associated with the layoffs and AI, as it does not consider them separable from the other organizational changes.
Kiwi also enables flight search via ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini after linking to a Kiwi account, though the purchase itself still takes place on the company's website. The number of queries through this channel has grown tenfold since January, but according to Komanec it is still only about one percent of the total search volume.
Why it matters
This case provides concrete, company-documented figures for deploying AI in customer support: an 85% autonomous resolution rate, a cost-per-request reduction of tens of percent, and maintained quality despite a growing communication volume without an increase in the IT budget. At the same time, it shows that despite the high degree of automation, the company is not planning to replace people entirely, keeping operators for emotionally demanding situations, which is a relevant pointer for companies considering a similar step.
Relevant practical impact
What this means
For a business
Deploying an AI agent in customer support allowed the company Kiwi to cut the cost per resolved request by tens of percent, reduce the number of operators at external partners by more than 75%, and handle a year-on-year increase in communication volume of two-thirds without increasing the technology budget.
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