Amazon launched Rufus to a small audience in the United States today. Rufus, a “generative AI-powered expert shopping assistant”, adds something to the shopping experience on Amazon that has been missing until now.
Online shopping, as comfortable as it is, lacks interactions with clerks. Even simple questions may remain unanswered on Amazon and other shopping sites.
Amazon maintains a question and answers section on its site for products, and these help sometimes. While it may be easy enough to find out if a particular shoe is available in a specific size, questions about the difference between AMD and Intel laptops may not be answered at all on Amazon’s website at the moment.
Getting the answer or information is often not a problem at local stores. Ask the clerk, and if the clerk is knowledgeable, you will get an answer.
Amazon introduces Rufus for exactly this. Rufus is a conversational AI that is designed to help shoppers on the site shop and buy products.
The AI was trained on Amazon’s product catalog, customer reviews, the questions and answers of the community, and information from “across the web”.
In other words, it may answer some of the questions that users may have about a particular product on Amazon. It is still necessary to look closely at the AI before you start using it.
Rufus, the AI clerk
Rufus may “answer customer questions on a variety of shopping needs and products, provide comparisons, and make recommendations based on conversational context” according to Amazon.
Amazon announced Rufus on its About Amazon website. Rufus may help shoppers in several ways. It may answer broad questions, such as “what to consider when buying running shoes” to very specific questions, e.g., if a pair of running shoes are durable.
Amazon gives a few general examples regarding Rufus’ capabilities:
- Learn what to look for while shopping product categories
- Shop by occasion or purpose
- Get help comparing product categories
- Find the best recommendations
- Ask questions about a specific product while on a product detail page
Rufus is available in the official Amazon mobile app for a small subset of U.S. customers. Amazon plans to roll out Rufus to all U.S. customers in the coming weeks. No word on expansion to other markets outside the United States at this point.
Amazon published a short video on YouTube that announces the AI.
Closing Words
Rufus adds something to Amazon that was missing until now: the option to communicate with “someone” to get answers to questions or advice. Whether Rufus is capable of filling the missing role of clerks at Amazon remains to be seen. It may take years before it is mature enough to be of use to the majority of Amazon shoppers.
AI’s like Rufus may replace store clerks in the long run. Think of talking to an Android instead of a human when shopping at Footlockers or another store.
AI introduces the risk of false information. While human clerks may also give bad advice, AI may hallucinate and this introduces another dimension to interactions.
There is also the risk that shopping sites manipulate AIs to push certain products. Again, this may also happen in Stores, but with AI, it is turning into large scale operations.
Now You: would you communicate with AI tools while shopping?