'Amazon Rufus' AI, new AI-powered assistant for online shoppers

Amazon has introduced a new AI personal shopping assistant named Rufus. This chatbot is integrated into the Amazon mobile app, allowing customers to ask product-related questions directly in the search bar. Rufus responds in a conversational tone, assisting users in tasks like comparing products, receiving gift recommendations, and more.

Rufus is a conversational AI that customers can chat with directly in Amazon’s mobile app search bar to get product recommendations, compare products, and get gift ideas. It aims to provide a more natural shopping experience.

Rufus is named after a dog that roamed Amazon’s offices in the early days. It’s currently available to a small subset of customers but will roll out more widely in coming weeks.

Rufus allows users to ask product-related questions directly in the search bar of Amazon’s mobile app, receiving conversational responses.

Amazon’s new AI shopping assistant Rufus

The launch of Rufus comes as Amazon races to catch up to other tech giants like Microsoft and Google that have already released AI chatbots. It could reshape product search and discovery on Amazon.

Amazon hopes Rufus will attract customers earlier in their shopping journey, before they know exactly what they want, an area where sites like Google and TikTok currently have an edge.

Rufus is trained on Amazon’s vast catalog data, reviews, Q&As and other web information to provide thoughtful explanations and recommendations. If popular, it could divert ad revenue away from Google and social media.

Separately, Amazon reported very strong Q4 2022 earnings, significantly exceeding expectations. Growth was fueled by marketplace services, advertising, and AWS, showing the company’s increasing profitability and overcoming economic difficulties. Amazon’s Q4 earnings report revealed strong performance, with $170 billion in sales and $10.6 billion in profits.

Rufus is initially available to a small group of customers, with a broader rollout planned in the coming weeks. Amazon aims to enhance the shopping experience, particularly attracting customers in the early stages of product exploration. The tool is trained on Amazon’s extensive product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&A, and information from the web.

Amazon has been working to keep up with AI developments in the tech industry. The introduction of Rufus follows the trend set by other tech giants like Microsoft and Google, which released chatbots and AI tools for their search engines. Amazon’s move is seen as an effort to capture customers’ attention during the research and exploration phase, not just when they have a specific product in mind.

If successful, Rufus could impact the advertising business, potentially diverting ad sales from competitors like Google and social media platforms. In addition to the Rufus announcement, Amazon reported strong fourth-quarter earnings, with sales reaching $170 billion, a 17% increase from the previous year. The company’s advertising business grew by 27%, reaching $14.7 billion in sales. Amazon’s cloud computing segment, Amazon Web Services, grew by 13%, totaling $24.2 billion. The company remains focused on profitability and efficiency, having made organizational changes and optimizations over the past year.