Amazon has released Rufus, but it is still in beta testing

Amazon has announced the launch of its AI-powered shopping assistant, Rufus, which is now available to all customers in the US on the Amazon mobile app.

Rufus is designed primarily to help customers with their purchases, whether it’s finding the best products, offering information and comparisons with other products on the list, and even providing personalized information about orders already made. Check out more details!

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Rufus was already in beta testing, but in a limited way.

Although the new chatbot is available to everyone, it is still in beta testing, according to the company. Rufus had already been available in this version since February, but only for a select group of customers. Now, it is available to everyone, although only in the United States for now.

According to Amazon, it was possible to accumulate “tens of millions of questions” during the first phase of testing the chatbot, thus improving it enough to launch it for everyone at that time.

Rufus was trained using Amazon’s extensive product catalog, as well as customer reviews, community Q&As, and other publicly available information from the web. However, Amazon did not specify which sites it sourced this information from, or whether it included other retail sites.

The chatbot is powered by an in-house large language model (LLM) specialized in shopping. This helps customers get more accurate answers about product details, factors to consider when choosing, differences between items and durability, since it can base itself on information taken from the web, as well as Amazon customer reviews and even expert analysis.

Examples of using Rufus

Customers can interact with Rufus by asking questions like, “What should I consider when buying headphones?”, “What are clean beauty products?” or “What do I need for cold weather golf?” He can also be helpful when a customer is trying to get started with an activity they’re not familiar with yet and wants to make sure they have everything they need.

For example, if someone wants to start building an indoor garden and tells Rufus, he can list the items that will be needed to accomplish this task.

During testing, Amazon observed that customers not only asked questions directly to the AI, but also clicked on related questions in the chat window to get more information. For example, a customer might ask about the material of a backpack and then click “What do customers say?” to read reviews.

The chatbot not only lists products for purchase, but also provides information to help in choosing what to buy. In addition to comparing items, it also provides updates on fashion trends, for example, so that a person has tips on which items of clothing or accessories are in fashion.

Finally, Rufus will also have personalized assistance, being able to provide information about orders already made in a given account or even about current orders, such as estimated delivery date and more.

To access Rufus, U.S. customers will need to update to the latest version of Amazon’s shopping app. The assistant is located in the bottom right corner of the app’s main navigation bar, indicated by an icon with chat bubbles and a sparkle.

Amazon promises future improvements

For now, as it is still in the testing phase, even though Rufus manages to fulfill its main role and is already considered a good shopping companion, it is also subject to errors and limitations in its recommendations (especially because it only recommends products available on Amazon).

The company said it will continue to improve Rufus over time, aiming to make it even more efficient and useful for customers. Still, Rufus is a welcome addition to Amazon’s arsenal of tools to better serve its customers.

Fonte: techcrunch, Amazon