Amazon has announced that its AI shopping assistant, Rufus, is now available to all US customers in the Amazon Shopping app and desktop. Rufus uses generative AI, like ChatGPT, to help customers make more informed purchase decisions. As you browse around Amazon, you can ask Rufus your pressing questions and it will try to give you an accurate answer to help you decide if you want to buy.
To access Rufus, US customers need to check if their Amazon Shopping app is up-to-date, then they can tap on the Rufus icon (chat bubbles with sparkle) in the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. On the desktop, Rufus can be opened from the Rufus icon at the top left of the screen.
After clicking the buttons, the Rufus chat window will open and you can ask your question or pick one of the pre-written questions if they're relevant. Depending on what you ask, Rufus will respond with a response, including links to relevant products.
While the feature is interesting, it is marked as a beta and Amazon says "it's still early days for both generative AI and Rufus". In practice, this means you may come across poor responses from Rufus.
Unlike the narrow AI of yesteryear, Rufus is pretty flexible in what it can do. It can scour product listing details, customer reviews, and community Q&As to answer your queries. It can give product recommendations based on your specific needs and compare options, you can ask it when your orders will arrive, and you can ask it questions not obviously related to shopping such as "What do I need for a summer party?"
We have seen the Rufus option available on desktop for a few weeks so far, but if you haven't, have a look next time you visit Amazon.com, you should see it now.
Source: Amazon
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