Amazon recently unveiled their AI shopping assistant Rufus that’s trained on their product catalog as well as information gathered across the web. Heavily modeled after their corgi dog mascot, Rufus provides customers with answers and recommendations through mobile apps – they simply search their question in the search bar to activate it, expand chat window with answers for queries they submitted then choose recommended follow up questions in dialog box before returning Rufus back down once done and continuing exploring results.
Rajiv Mehta, Amazon’s Vice President of Search and Conversational Shopping and Trishul Chilimbi, its Vice President and Distinguished Scientist in its Foundational AI division, have stated that their new AI aims to “significantly enhance search and discovery by providing personalized results, recommendations, and product comparisons.” It was trained using Amazon’s massive catalog as well as customer reviews, community Q&As and information available across the web – as well as training data collected via Amazon itself.
Rufus is currently available to a subset of U.S. customers as part of a beta test through their mobile app, but will gradually roll out to more users over time. Customers can access it by initiating a query in the mobile app and clicking on the search bar to activate Rufus; voice search users will also have access to it, with suggestions based on past purchases being available as an alternative way of engaging Rufus.
Rufus, as a generative AI tool, learns as it engages customers through natural language interactions using machine learning algorithms to understand what customers mean. The more customers use it, the smarter it gets and can begin to understand their needs and shopping patterns better. Amazon claims Rufus can be utilized at all points along their shopping journey: from initial research (what should I consider when purchasing running shoes?) through comparative searches such as “what are the differences between drip and pour-over coffee makers?”) until final purchases (what is the difference between drip and pour-over coffee makers?).
It can assist companies with reducing customer support costs by answering basic inquiries and helping facilitate returns and refunds. Andy Jassy had promised investors that Rufus’s beta release would show how heavily invested they are in AI technology to offer an exceptional customer experience. Rufus’s release demonstrates this promise is being fulfilled. E-commerce giant Amazon hopes that Rufus can help boost sales and stay ahead of competition from other online retailers. Success could play a pivotal role in its fourth quarter earnings report due Thursday; analysts will eagerly anticipate results since its stock has seen dramatic gains over the past 12 months, up over 50% overall and 14% this year alone compared to all predictions made by Wall Street analysts.
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