Amazon announces the launch of Rufus, a new generative AI-powered conversational shopping assistant, in the UK

Amazon has been using AI very expansively for over 25 years to improve customer experiences. The personalised recommendations customers get when they shop on Amazon’s store, the pick-paths in our fulfilment centres, and the conversational capabilities of Alexa are just a few examples of experiences fuelled by AI. And we believe generative AI is going to change virtually all customer experiences that we know.

Over the past year, we’ve introduced a number of new generative AI-powered capabilities on Amazon’s store to make shopping even easier and more convenient for customers. Our AI-generated review highlights provide customers with common themes from dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of reviews at a glance to help them quickly understand customer insights. We are also using generative AI to make product listings even more informative for customers by helping our selling partners write more engaging and effective titles and product descriptions, and enrich existing listings.

Building on these AI customer innovations, today we are launching Rufus in beta to customers in the UK. Customers in the U.S. have already asked Rufus tens of millions of questions, and we’re excited to introduce it here too.

From broad research at the start of a shopping journey such as “What do I need for making smoothies?” to comparisons such as “Should I get trail shoes or running shoes?” to more specific questions such as “Are these durable?”, Rufus meaningfully improves how easy it is for customers to find and discover the best products to meet their needs, integrated seamlessly into the same Amazon shopping experience they regularly use.

With Rufus, customers can:

• Learn what to look for while shopping product categories: Customers can conduct more general product research on Amazon, with queries such as “Types of headphones” or “Types of coffee machines” and receive helpful information to guide their shopping mission.
  
• Shop by occasion or purpose: Customers can search for and discover products based on activity, event, purpose, and other specific needs by asking a range of questions such as “What do I need for climbing?” or “I want to start an indoor garden.” Rufus then suggests shoppable product categories—from safety harnesses, climbing shoes and gloves to seed starters, potting mix, and grow lights—and related questions that customers can click on for more specific searches. Because Rufus can answer a wide range of questions, it can help customers at any stage of their shopping journey by answering questions not obviously related to shopping, such as “What do I need for baking?”.
  
• Get help comparing options: Customers can ask Rufus to quickly compare product category features by asking questions like “What’s the difference between lip gloss and lip oil?” or “Compare types of electric razor” so they can find the type of product that best suits their needs and make even more confident purchase decisions.
  
• Find the best recommendations: Customers can ask for recommendations for exactly what they need, such as “What are good gifts for a teacher?” or “Best games for rainy days with a 5-year-old.” Rufus generates results tailored to the specific question and makes it quick and easy for customers to browse more refined results.
  
• Ask questions about a specific product while on a product detail page: Customers can tap on “What do customers say?” to get a quick and helpful overview of customers reviews when on a specific product detail page. Customers can also use Rufus to quickly get answers to specific questions about individual products when they are viewing the product’s detail page, such as “is this tennis racket suitable for beginners?”, “is this jacket machine washable?”, or “is this cordless drill easy to hold?” - Rufus will then generate answers based on listing details, customer reviews, and community Q&As.

With Rufus, customers are now able to shop alongside a generative AI-powered expert that knows Amazon’s selection inside and out, and can bring it all together with information from across the web to help them make more informed purchase decisions.

Rufus is now being made available to select customers when they next update their Amazon Shopping app. To use Rufus, customers in the beta can simply click on the icon in the bottom righthand corner on Amazon’s mobile app and a Rufus chat box will appear on their screen. Customers can expand the chat box to see answers to their questions, tap on suggested questions, and ask follow-up questions. Customers can dismiss Rufus to return to their traditional search results at any time by swiping down to close the chat box.

Rufus generates answers using relevant information from across Amazon and the web to help customers make better, more informed shopping decisions. It’s still early days for generative AI, and the technology won’t always get it exactly right. We will keep improving our AI models and fine-tuning 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.

We are excited about the potential of generative AI and will continue testing new features to make it even easier to find and discover, research, and buy products on Amazon’s store. We look forward to progressively rolling Rufus out to additional customers in the coming weeks.

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