Kate Mills 
Feb 02, 2024
Amazon announced today the launch of an AI-powered shopping assistant it’s calling Rufus that’s been trained on the e-commerce giant’s product catalog as well as information from around the web.
Starting to roll out from today (February 1) with Amazon's plans to release widely in coming weeks, Rufus will assist users to in finding products, performing product comparisons, and getting recommendations on what to buy.
Trained on the product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, and information from around the web, the bot can answer customers’ questions related to their shopping needs.
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Amazon has developed a new specialised LLM for shopping purposes, which has been trained on internal data as well as "publicly available data from across the web." It is unclear whether this includes data from other retail websites, as noted by TechCrunch.
For instance, Amazon suggests that users can ask the AI questions about buying running shoes, such as questions like “What to consider when buying a running shoe?” “What are the differences between trail and road running shoes?” or “Are these durable?”
Users can interact with the AI assistant in a similar way to other consumer-facing AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard.
The AI assistant can also help with product comparisons or make recommendations if you ask things like “What are good gifts for Valentine’s Day?” or “What are the best dinosaur toys for a five-year-old?” After Rufus answers, the customer can continue to browse through more refined results.
“It’s still early days for generative AI, and the technology won’t always get it exactly right,” the company said in a blog post. “We will keep improving our AI models and fine-tune responses to continuously make Rufus more helpful over time. Customers are encouraged to leave feedback by rating their answers with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and they have the option to provide freeform feedback as well,” Amazon stated in a blog post.
How to launch Rufus in Amazon mobile app
The AI feature, named Rufus, can be accessed in the Amazon mobile app by tapping on a new button in the bottom navigation bar. Users can input their questions through typing or speaking into the AI’s chat dialogue box at the bottom of the screen.
