Amazon is expanding the availability of its AI-enabled shopping assistant Rufus to more markets in Europe and the Americas.
The e-commerce giant has been widely thought to be catching up to its Big Tech peers in the AI space, especially given the hype around generative AI in recent years. Rufus is one way Amazon is showing its commitment to the game. The main features provided by this tool include product search support, product comparisons, and recommendations on what to buy.
The AI chatbot is trained on Amazon's vast amount of data across customer reviews, product catalogs, and other relevant public data, and uses shoppers' natural language questions (for example, “What do you tell children under 5?”). or would you recommend a nice gift?'' etc.). ” or “Compare different types of coffee makers.”
To access Rufus, shoppers in the new market must update their Amazon shopping app to the latest version. Then, tap the small icon in the bottom right and you'll be taken to a familiar chatbot-style interface.
Amazon's Rufus is in action. Image credit: Amazon
The e-commerce giant first trialled Rufus in the US in February and officially launched it five months later. In the previous months, beta versions of the AI assistant have landed in India and the UK. On Tuesday, Amazon further expanded the beta's availability to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain.
Rufus isn't the only generative AI tool Amazon is working on. The company also recently announced a new tool that allows sellers to improve their listings by generating product descriptions, titles, and related details. Amazon has also committed $230 million to support generative AI startups.
Amazon was quick to stress that this is still an early version of Rufus and, like many generative AI applications, “it may not always work exactly right.”
“We will continue to improve our AI models and fine-tune their responses, making Rufus even more useful over time,” the company said in a blog post.