Amazon Presents Generative AI Shopping Assistant Rufus, Starts Beta Testing

Amazon, one of the largest e-commerce companies, has entered the segment of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI). The company has introduced Rufus, an AI-powered shopping assistant. It is claimed that this will improve the shopping experience of the users. Apart from answering queries, this chatbot can also help with suggestions and compare different products.

Rufus has been made available in beta to some users of the Amazon mobile app in the US. It will be rolled out to a larger number of users and more regions in the coming months. Amazon has said that this AI chatbot has been trained on Amazon's product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As and information from the web. Amazon developed an internal Large Language Model (LLM) specializing in shopping experiences to create Rufus, the company told TechCrunch.

According to a report in the New York Times, Amazon employees are allowed to bring their dogs to the workplace and one of the dogs that came in its early days was called Rufus. Users can ask the chatbot questions like “What to consider before buying headphones” and they will get this information in a conversational manner. Apart from this, there will also be options to make follow-up queries, ask for suggestions, compare two different headphones or know about the durability and good quality of a particular product. This chatbot can take input in both text and audio formats.

Amazon has not provided information on whether Rufus is available only for the mobile app or whether it will be offered on the website as well. There is no separate button to activate this chatbot. To use it, when users type queries in the search bar of the app, it answers them in a dialogue box at the bottom of the screen. The company has said that it has been using AI for the last several years to improve the customer experience. Amazon has said that it takes the help of AI and similar technologies for its personalized system of suggestions. It says, “We are excited about the potential of generative AI. We will continue testing new features to make searching and shopping easier on Amazon's stores.”