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 in addition to information from around the online. The corporate says the brand new tool will launch to a subset of U.S. customers in beta, starting today, before expanding to more users within the weeks ahead. Customers will find a way to speak with Rufus inside Amazon’s mobile app to get help with finding products, performing product comparisons, and getting recommendations on what to purchase.
The launch of the AI chatbot comes on the heels of other AI-powered additions across Amazon.com aimed toward improving the shopping experience for consumers, starting from tools that help customers find clothes that fit to people who enhance product reviews with summaries of product highlights and customer sentiment, in addition to others aimed toward advertisers and sellers.
Rufus, meanwhile, is a generative AI experience that’s been trained on the product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, and data from around the online, so it could answer customers’ questions related to their shopping needs, whether or not they’re in the beginning of their shopping journey, attempting to narrow down selections, or once they have more specific questions.
The corporate tells TechCrunch it built a latest, internal LLM specialized for shopping to power this experience after which trained it on its data and “publicly available data from across the online.” It didn’t say if that data included other publicly available retail web sites, nevertheless.
For instance, Amazon suggests a customer out there for trainers could ask Rufus questions like “What to contemplate when buying a running shoe?” “What are the differences between trail and road trainers?” or “Are these durable?”
Customers researching other products could also ask things like “What to contemplate when buying headphones?” “What to contemplate when detailing my automotive at home?” “What are clean beauty products?” “What do I would like for cold weather golf?” and more. Or you possibly can simply tell Rufus something you need to do, like: “I need to start out an indoor garden.”
The AI may help with product comparisons or make recommendations in case you ask things like “What are good gifts for Valentine’s Day?” or “What are the very best dinosaur toys for a five-year-old?” After Rufus answers, the client can proceed to flick through more refined results.
In other words, you possibly can chat with the AI assistant much as you do with other consumer-facing AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard — the latter of which also includes shopping integrations.
Rufus will initially be available in beta to pick customers within the U.S. inside the Amazon mobile app, where it’s launched by tapping on a latest button in the underside navigation bar. Customers can each type or speak their questions into the AI’s chat dialog box that appears at the underside of the screen.
When finished, customers can return to the Amazon app by swiping down on their screen to dismiss the chat dialog box back to the underside of the screen.
Amazon says the beta will help it to enhance the product and its generative AI initiatives over time.
“It’s still early days for generative AI, and the technology won’t at all times get it exactly right,” the corporate said in a blog post. “We are going to keep improving our AI models and fine-tune responses to repeatedly make Rufus more helpful over time. Customers are encouraged to depart feedback by rating their answers with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and so they have the choice to offer freeform feedback as well,” it read.
The corporate tells us the chatbot won’t feature promoting at launch, but additional elements can be added to the Rufus experience over time in the event that they add value for purchasers.
Because the bot was not made available for testing, we are able to’t speak to its efficiency. However it’s price mentioning that Amazon’s AI chatbot Q for businesses has struggled, producing hallucinations (false information) and revealing confidential data.
Rufus will roll out to other U.S. customers within the “coming weeks.”