Amazon debuts AI shopping assistant Rufus in India

E-commerce giant Amazon has announced the introduction of its AI-powered shopping assistant in India. Amazon will begin a beta rollout, with a wider release planned for a later stage.

According to the details from the official Amazon announcement, Rufus is an AI-powered expert shopping assistant. Amazon has stated that Rufus is trained on Amazon’s product catalog and can help customers by answering questions regarding shopping, products and comparisons and also offering recommendations.

Amazon rolls out Rufus beta to select customers

Amazon has announced that the Rufus beta version is being launched today to a set of customers via the Amazon mobile app. Additionally, the AI shopping assistant will be launched gradually to everyone in the coming weeks. The launch follows its success in the US market.

This is not Amazon’s first experiment with AI. According to the e-commerce giant, they have been using AI for over 25 years. These include Alexa’s conversational abilities and AI generated reviews.

“This past year, we’ve introduced a number of new generative AI-powered capabilities on the Amazon.in marketplace to make shopping even easier and more convenient,”

said Amazon.

Rufus can help customers shop based on activity and events

In its official launch announcement, Amazon highlighted some of the key features of Rufus that can help customers with their shopping experience.

Amazon stated that Rufus can meaningfully improve responses by offering customers products that can meet their needs. Apart from basic questions and general queries, Rufus can help in conducting more general product research. These include recommendations on buying their phone, laptop, etc.

Additionally, customers can ask to find products depending on a specific event, purpose or any other use case. Interestingly, Amazon users can ask for the ingredients needed to make their favorite delicacy, and Rufus can list them out.

Customers can also compare different products to analyze their features, which can help in choosing the right product for them. However, Amazon has stated that it’s still early days for generative AI and that the tech won’t always get it right. “We will keep improving our AI models and fine-tune responses to continuously make Rufus more helpful over time,” Amazon stated.