The company has built a new, internal LLM specialized for shopping to power Rufus, and trained it on its data and publicly available data from the web. The beta launch of Rufus will help Amazon improve the product and its generative AI initiatives over time. While the chatbot won't feature advertising at launch, additional elements may be added to the Rufus experience over time if they add value for customers. The rollout of Rufus to other U.S. customers will occur in the coming weeks.
Key takeaways:
- Amazon has announced the launch of Rufus, an AI-powered shopping assistant trained on the company's product catalog and information from around the web.
- Rufus will be available to a subset of U.S. customers in beta, with plans to expand to more users in the coming weeks.
- Customers can interact with Rufus in the Amazon mobile app to find products, compare products, and get buying recommendations.
- While the chatbot won't feature advertising at launch, Amazon plans to add more elements to the Rufus experience over time if they add value for customers.