Klaviyo announced the launch of Klaviyo AI on February 27, 2024, with Segments AI generating complex segments in seconds based on simple audience prompts. This feature addresses one of email marketing's most persistent bottlenecks: the manual, time-intensive process of building sophisticated audience segments.
The Problem It Solves
Manual segmentation requires marketers to understand complex filter logic, test multiple condition combinations, and manually adjust rules as customer behavior changes. Just 31% of businesses use basic segmentation to send out emails, and when using email automation, only 13% of advanced segmentation was used to send out emails. The barrier to entry remains high, particularly for teams without deep platform expertise.
The Segment Builder page now includes a "Define with AI" option where you can describe the segment you want to create in plain text, and Klaviyo generates a preview of how the segment will look with a breakdown of the logic rules that will define it.
For marketers, this speed matters because segmentation directly affects revenue. Segmented campaigns account for 58% of email revenue, making segment quality non-negotiable for growth. AI-driven behavioral segments based on purchase propensity, churn risk, and lifetime value produce 18-45% higher revenue per recipient compared to traditional demographic segmentation.
How It Works
The interface strips away technical complexity. Rather than navigating dropdown menus and conditional logic builders, marketers describe their target audience in natural language. Examples include "customers who are at high risk of churn" or "subscribers most likely to make a purchase in the next 30 days." For those just starting with Klaviyo, this provides an excellent way to utilise segmentation without requiring an in-depth understanding of segment logic, and even for seasoned Klaviyo users, this feature offers the flexibility to get creative and test new segments with complex logic structures.
Users can preview segment logic before building it to ensure all relevant profiles are included, which will help when creating complex segments. This reduces the risk of accidental misconfigurations that can undermine campaign performance.
Business Impact
The speed advantage is meaningful. Automation drives 320% more revenue than manual campaigns. When segmentation becomes faster and more accessible, teams can create more targeted campaigns more frequently, concentrating offers where they have the highest likelihood of converting.
For ecommerce and direct-to-consumer brands, the leverage is particularly high. Kate Spade used email engagement to split customers into segments based on interests, like handbags vs. jewelry, then used automated product feeds to personalize emails with fresh items, resulting in a 50% increase in conversion rates, a 36% jump in CTR, and a 174% increase in revenue.
Segments AI also enables dynamic behavior-based targeting that static demographic segments cannot match. Subscriber behavior changes constantly, and static segments quickly fall out of sync, leading to irrelevant messaging and missed opportunities, while dynamic segmentation ensures contacts automatically move between segments as their actions and status evolve.
Practical Takeaway for Teams
Users can create segments and run tests with a few clicks, leaving AI to do most of the heavy lifting, especially exciting for marketers who are fairly new to Klaviyo, allowing them to create complex segments and run highly effective form optimisation tests from the word go.
For growth teams managing multiple campaigns simultaneously, the time savings translate directly to capacity. Instead of spending hours building and testing segment logic, marketers can allocate that time to strategy, testing, and refinement of messaging and offers.
In 2025, AI is no longer a buzzword – it's the cornerstone of high-performing email campaigns, enabling hyper-personalized messages that feel tailor-made for each subscriber by analyzing customer behavior, preferences, and past interactions. Segments AI fits squarely into this shift, removing the technical friction that has historically prevented teams from executing personalized strategies at scale.
The feature released as part of a broader Klaviyo AI suite, alongside Email AI for content generation and Forms AI for conversion optimization, positioning segmentation as a foundational layer for an increasingly autonomous email marketing workflow.
