Amazon has introduced an experimental virtual assistant for its mobile app in the United States. ‘Rufus’ can answer user questions based on product information, customer reviews and community updates.
Amazon starts with a closed beta of the tool, which only works in the United States for now. Rufus is a chatbot with generative AI that users can ask questions about products that can then be purchased on Amazon. Amazon gives as an example a question such as: “What should I pay attention to when buying running shoes?”
Amazon trained the chatbot with information from the platform itself. This concerns, for example, product pages, but also the reviews that users have left or questions they have asked in Q&As on support pages. Rufus appears in the mobile app for a ‘small number of users’, as a pop-up. Amazon has not said whether the tool will eventually become available in other languages.