Amazon CEO Says Rufus Changes What Discovery Looks Like

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy believes its new generative AI tool called Rufus is going to meaningfully change what discovery looks like for its shopping experience and for its customers. He made the pronouncement during an earnings call with Wall Street analysts on Thursday after the company posted better-than-expected 4th quarter results.

Earlier in the day, Amazon had announced a new gen AI (generative Artificial Intelligence) shopping assistant called Rufus. “It lets customers discover items in a very different way than they have been able to do on ecommerce websites,” the CEO told analysts on the call.

Jassy called the new shopping assistant just another step – though a meaningful one – explaining that Rufus is trained on Amazon’s extensive product catalog, its community Q&As and customer reviews, and the broader web.

He recited other generative AI applications the company had built. One allows customers to look at a summary of customer reviews; another helps customers quickly predict what kind of fit they’d have for apparel items. And Amazon uses a generative AI application that forecasts how much inventory is needed in each of its fulfillment centers, he said.

Rufus launched on Thursday in beta to a small subset of customers in Amazon’s mobile app, and it will progressively roll out to additional US customers in the coming weeks.

Jassy said Rufus provides advice to shoppers, helps them with purpose buying, and offers comparisons. As an example, Jassy said a shopper might be on a pickleball paddle listing page and ask Rufus if it’s a good racket for beginners. Not only can you get answers, but Rufus is “seamlessly integrated into the Amazon experience that customers are used to and love to be able to take action,” he said. What he didn’t say – Rufus might keep shoppers from hopping over to Google to find answers to such questions, helping keep shoppers a captive audience.

Amazon posted the following video on YouTube demonstrating the new Rufus generative AI-powered conversational shopping experience:

Ina Steiner

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). She is a member of the Online News Association (Sep 2005 - present) and Investigative Reporters and Editors (Mar 2006 - present). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com. See disclosure at EcommerceBytes.com/disclosure/.