Amazon announces Rufus, a new generative AI-powered conversational shopping experience

Amazon has been using AI very expansively for 25+ years to improve customer experiences. The personalized recommendations customers get when they shop Amazon’s store, the pick paths in our fulfillment centers, our drone deliveries, the conversational capabilities of Alexa, and our checkout-free Amazon Go stores are just a few examples of experiences fueled by AI. And we believe generative AI is going to change virtually all customer experiences that we know.

This past year, we’ve introduced a number of new generative AI-powered capabilities in Amazon’s store to make shopping even easier and more convenient. 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 also recently introduced our Fit Review Highlights feature, which offers personalized size guidance and insights so customers can determine which size will fit them best. 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.

Rufus is a generative AI-powered expert shopping assistant trained on Amazon’s extensive product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&As, and information from across the web to answer customer questions on a variety of shopping needs and products, provide comparisons, and make recommendations based on conversational context.

Learn the backstory on Rufus at Amazon

Thousands of dogs join employees at Amazon today, but back in 1996 there was only one: a Welsh corgi named Rufus who roamed the first warehouse and loved meetings.

Meet Rufus

From broad research at the start of a shopping journey such as “what to consider when buying running shoes?” to comparisons such as “what are the differences between trail and road 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 use regularly.

We're launching Rufus in beta and starting to roll it out to customers in waves, beginning with a small subset of customers in the U.S. using our mobile app, and progressively rolling it out to the rest of our U.S. customers in the coming weeks.

With Rufus, customers can:

• Learn what to look for while shopping product categories: Customers can conduct more general product research on Amazon, asking questions such as “what to consider when buying headphones?”, “what to consider when detailing my car at home?”, or “what are clean beauty products?” 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 use cases by asking a range of questions such as “what do I need for cold weather golf?” or “I want to start an indoor garden.” Rufus suggests shoppable product categories—from golf base layers, jackets, and gloves to seed starters, potting mix, and grow lights—and related questions that customers can click on to conduct more specific searches.
• Get help comparing product categories: Customers can now ask “what’s the difference between lip gloss and lip oil?” or “compare drip to pour-over coffee makers” 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 Valentine’s Day?” or “best dinosaur toys for 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 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 pickleball paddle good for beginners?”, or “is this jacket machine washable?”, or “is this cordless drill easy to hold?”. Rufus will 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 start typing or speaking their questions into the search bar in Amazon’s mobile app and a Rufus chat dialog box will appear at the bottom of their screen. Customers can expand the chat dialog box to see answers to their questions, tap on suggested questions, and ask follow-up questions in the chat dialog box. Customers can dismiss Rufus to return to their traditional search results at any time by swiping down to send the chat dialog box back to the bottom of their screen.

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-tune 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 in Amazon’s store. We look forward to progressively rolling Rufus out to additional U.S. customers in the coming weeks.

Next, check out how Amazon is innovating with AI.