Billed as an “autonomous B2C CRM,” the Klaviyo platform brings marketing, service, data and agents together to help brands (including Paul Smith, Castore and Loop earplugs) build stronger customer experiences at scale.
Chano Fernández joined Klaviyo as co-CEO in February having served on its Board and as Interim Executive Officer. He now leads Klaviyo’s go-to-market strategy and global operations while partnering with co-founder Andrew Bialecki to shape the platform’s next chapter.
In conversation with New Digital Age, Fernández, discusses how integrations across AI, commerce and creative tools are reshaping the way brands build customer relationships…
How does Klaviyo position itself in the market?
Klaviyo is an autonomous B2C CRM platform built around two distinct layers: the infrastructure layer and the agentic layer.
The infrastructure layer centres on a unified data platform designed to process and index customer data in real time at scale. The second layer focuses on AI-powered customer and marketing agents, including Klaviyo’s marketing assistant, Composer, and its broader customer agent capabilities.
The overall aim is to deliver stronger customer experiences by bringing marketing, service and data agents together within a single platform. We currently work with nearly 200,000 brands globally, including UK businesses such as Paul Smith, Castore, Craftd and Mattel.
Why is the data layer so important?
Klaviyo’s infrastructure is designed to process approximately 2 billion daily interactions across 8 billion customer profiles. The platform also includes more than 350 pre-built integrations, alongside partnerships with Google, Anthropic, Canva, OpenAI and Shopify.
The goal is to provide brands with real-time visibility into customer intent, engagement and behaviour so they can personalise communications more effectively and improve revenue outcomes.
The platform combines customer signals, segmentation and behavioural data to help brands create highly targeted campaigns and customer journeys.
Are the integrations driven by customer demand or market anticipation?
Our recent integrations have largely been driven by anticipation of where the market is heading rather than direct customer requests.
The company sees the future of CRM becoming increasingly API-driven and “headless”, allowing brands to connect customer data and AI tools more flexibly across multiple systems and channels.
The focus is on openness and interoperability, enabling businesses to combine external AI technologies with Klaviyo’s customer intelligence infrastructure to build richer customer experiences.
What are brands looking for from AI today?
Most brands are currently looking for support, guidance and practical implementation advice around AI.
A major focus is Composer, Klaviyo’s AI-powered marketing assistant, which allows brands to generate campaigns, work flows and messaging through natural language prompts. Brands are using these tools to generate campaign ideas, maintain brand consistency and improve targeting using customer behaviour and purchase history.
One of the main constraints many businesses face is limited internal marketing resources, particularly among smaller companies where creativity and staffing remain significant challenges.
What role do “flows” play in the platform?
We place heavy emphasis on “flows” — automated customer journeys triggered by customer actions or audience segmentation. These flows are seen as significantly more effective than traditional broad campaigns, with the company claiming they can generate up to ten times more revenue.
AI tools within the platform can audit these workflows, identify weaknesses and recommend improvements automatically. According to our own research, customers implementing these AI-driven optimisations are already seeing revenue uplifts of between 30% and 40%.
How does Klaviyo measure success?
Klaviyo measures performance through what it calls “Klaviyo attributed value” or “Klaviyo attributed revenue”.
The model tracks whether customers who engage with email, SMS or other communications later complete a purchase within a defined attribution window. The company positions this as a more direct and tangible measurement model tied closely to business outcomes and revenue generation.
One example highlighted was Paul Smith, which moved away from fragmented legacy systems in favour of a unified customer platform. By consolidating customer interactions into a single real-time system, brands are able to personalise communications more effectively across channels and better understand customer behaviour.
Is there growing overlap between CRM and media activation?
While Klaviyo does not directly operate within advertising, the relationship between CRM data and media targeting is becoming increasingly interconnected. One example is the company’s work with Google around richer targeting and personalisation through Google Ads integrations.
The aim is to combine anonymous advertising interactions with richer first-party customer data already held within Klaviyo’s platform, enabling brands to improve targeting, personalisation and conversion outcomes.
What does the future of customer interaction look like?
Klaviyo believes the next major shift will centre around AI-powered customer agents acting as digital sales representatives for brands.
As consumers become increasingly comfortable interacting with conversational AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, similar experiences are expected to become standard across ecommerce and customer service. Unlike older chatbot systems built around scripted responses, these newer AI agents are designed to understand customer history, abandoned purchases, complaints and behavioural context in real time.
The long-term ambition is fully autonomous customer engagement across web chat, email, SMS and WhatsApp, with some brands already conducting fully AI-led transactions without human involvement.
What challenges are brands facing with AI adoption?
Implementation and training remain significant barriers, particularly for smaller businesses. One of the biggest concerns is how to train customer agents effectively so they understand brand tone, customer expectations and desired behaviours.
Klaviyo is therefore investing in tools designed to help businesses train AI agents, allowing them to learn from interactions and improve over time.
The company is also focused on reducing implementation friction and simplifying deployment for businesses with limited technical resources.
