Amazon’s AI shopping assistant rolls out to all users in the US

Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, Rufus, is rolling out to all users in the US on Amazon’s mobile app. You can pull up the shopping assistant by tapping the orange and blue icon in the right corner of the app’s navigation bar, where Rufus can answer questions, draw comparisons between items, and give you updates on your order.

Amazon first introduced Rufus in February but only made it available to a small group of users. Rufus uses Amazon’s product listing details, reviews, and community Q&As, along with some information from the web, to inform its answers.

You can ask the tool things directly related to a product, like “Is this coffee maker easy to clean and maintain?” as well as recommendations about the best outdoor speaker or even more general questions about the products you might need for a summer party. You can also ask Rufus for the status of a recent order.

After updating my Amazon app, I got to try Rufus for myself. I navigated to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 I’ve been eyeing and found the Rufus automatically surfaces some questions, like “How long does the battery last on a single charge?” While it came up with the answer (40 hours), it failed to mention that this is only true with always-on display turned off (otherwise, it’s around 30 hours).

I also found that you can use it to answer questions completely unrelated to shopping, such as the US elections. When asking about the candidates’ key issues, Rufus referred me to Amazon search results containing books on abortion rights and gun control. It also provided me with detailed information about President Joe Biden’s stance on gun control when asked, while linking me to Amazon search results containing gun safety locks and biometric gun safes.

That’s a little bit concerning for a chatbot that’s just been made available to everyone. It is still in beta, though, so guardrails on certain topics like the election may not be fully refined yet.