Seattle, WA – Amazon is introducing a new shopping assistant, Rufus, that uses generative AI to enhance the customer shopping experience. As part of its ongoing efforts to use AI to improve customer experiences, Amazon is launching Rufus in beta to a select group of customers in its mobile app, with plans to roll it out to more U.S. customers in the coming weeks.
Rufus is designed to help customers with a variety of shopping needs, from general product research to specific questions about individual products. It can provide recommendations, comparisons, and answers based on information gathered from Amazon’s extensive product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, and other sources across the web.
With the new AI-powered assistant, customers can get more personalized size guidance and insights, as well as AI-generated review highlights to quickly understand customer insights. Additionally, Rufus allows customers to ask questions about specific products while viewing the product’s detail page, providing them with quick answers based on listing details, customer reviews, and community Q&As.
The assistant also enables customers to search for and discover products based on activities, events, purposes, and specific use cases by asking a range of questions. This feature provides shoppable product categories and related questions for more specific searches to help customers make more informed purchase decisions.
Rufus aims to bring together Amazon’s selection and information from across the web to help customers make better, more informed shopping decisions. Customers in the beta can access Rufus by typing or speaking their questions into the search bar in Amazon’s mobile app and engaging in a chat dialog box to receive answers and ask follow-up questions.
As the company continues to develop and improve its generative AI models, it encourages customers to leave feedback on Rufus’s responses to ensure continuous improvement. Amazon is excited about the potential of generative AI and is committed to testing new features to make it even easier for customers to find, discover, research, and buy products in its store.
The introduction of Rufus represents Amazon’s latest effort to leverage AI technology to enhance the customer shopping experience, providing a more personalized and intuitive way for customers to interact with the platform. The company’s ongoing investment in AI reflects its dedication to innovation and improving the overall customer experience.