Amazon has introduced an AI shopping assistant called Rufus, which is trained on the company’s product library, customer reviews, and web information. Rufus can answer questions about products, make comparisons, provide suggestions, and more. Currently in beta, Rufus will be available to select customers before rolling out to more users in the coming weeks. To access Rufus, users can open a chat with the assistant through Amazon’s mobile app by typing or speaking questions into the search bar. Rufus will appear as a chat window at the bottom of the screen, allowing users to expand it for answers, select suggested questions, or ask additional questions. The AI chatbot has been answering questions on product pages since earlier this month. Rufus can provide answers to questions about product differences, gift suggestions, and specific product details by utilizing information from product listings, customer reviews, and community Q&As. Even during simple searches, suggested questions for Rufus will appear, potentially adding clutter to the screen. Overall, the usefulness of Rufus will need to be tested firsthand to determine its effectiveness.
