Even Amazon Now Has an Artificial Intelligence Bot
The jury is still out on whether generative AI is truly the game-changing technology it promises to be, but until we find out, every tech company wants to get into artificial intelligence. Now, for some reason, it’s Amazon’s turn.
On Thursday, Amazon announced ” Rufus ,” its new generative AI bot—sorry, “conversational shopping.” According to Amazon, Rufus ( named after the corgi of an early Amazon employee ) is trained to work with Amazon’s product catalog, customer reviews, questions and answers, and online purchase data. In theory, you should be able to ask Rufus for his thoughts on what you should buy, product comparisons, and suggestions for new products you haven’t heard of before.
Amazon highlights five use cases for Rufus:
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Learn more about a product or product category when you’re looking for something to buy so you can make a more informed purchasing decision.
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Search products based on the occasion or purpose to find the product that fits the situation.
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Compare product categories so you can decide between, say, a drip coffee maker or a pour-over.
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Ask for product recommendations based on what Rufus considers the “best” option.
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Ask questions about a product by visiting that product page. Ideally, Rufus will find answers to specific product questions on the product page faster than you.
Am I convinced that Rufus will be especially useful? No. As we know, AI can be impressive, but it can also be messy and prone to invention . It would be very disappointing to make an important purchasing decision based on Rufus’ “ideas” when it turns out that those ideas were based on nothing . I’m sure Amazon is hoping Alexa isn’t the shopping assistant the company wanted it to be, since most users rely on it for queries like “what’s the weather?” among other issues that do not bring in any money. I’m sure if Rufus can inspire more users to shop more, Amazon will be a happy camper.
Of course, Rufus is not Amazon’s first venture into artificial intelligence. The company has tried artificial intelligence-generated review summaries and even allowed sellers to create product titles and summaries using the tool. Hm.
How to Try Rufus on Amazon Now
If you’re wondering about Amazon’s artificial intelligence, it’s being rolled out at the time of writing, albeit at a fairly slow pace. Amazon says the bot will be available to “select customers” the next time they update the Amazon Shopping app, and will continue to roll out the experience over the coming weeks.
So, the best way to try out Rufus as soon as possible is to update your Shopping app on iOS or Android . There are no settings that you need to enable; If you have the update, Rufus will appear after you search for something in the app. You can maximize Rufus’s window if you want to continue asking the bot questions, or close the window completely to return to the traditional Amazon shopping experience.