Amazon Expands AI Shopping Assistant Rufus to European and Canadian Markets

Amazon brings its Rufus AI shopping assistant to more international markets | TechCrunch

Amazon is extending the availability of its AI-enabled shopping assistant, Rufus, to more markets in Europe and the Americas. The ecommerce giant has been widely considered to be playing catchup with its Big Tech brethren in the AI sphere, particularly against the backdrop of the generative AI hype these past couple of years. Rufus is one of the ways Amazon is showing that it's up for the game. Key features the tool offers include product search support, product comparisons, and recommendations on what to buy. The AI chatbot has been trained on Amazon's arsenal of data, spanning customer reviews, product catalogs, and other tangential public data to be primed to answer shoppers' natural language questions -- such as: "can you recommend some great gifts for kids under 5?," or "compare different kinds of coffee makers." The ecommerce giant first trialled Rufus in the U.S. back in February, before formally launching it five months later. In the intervening months, a beta version of the AI assistant has landed in India and the U.K. On Tuesday Amazon further expanded the beta's availability to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Rufus isn't the only generative AI tool that Amazon has been working on -- the company also recently launched new tools to help sellers improve their listings by generating product descriptions, titles, and associated details. Amazon has also committed $230 million to supporting generative AI startups. To access Rufus, shoppers in the new markets must update their Amazon Shopping app to the latest version, then they can tap a little icon at the bottom-right which surfaces a familiar chatbot-style interface. Amazon is quick to stress that this is still an early iteration of Rufus, and -- like many generative AI applications -- it "won't always get it exactly right." "We will keep improving our AI models and fine-tuning responses to continuously make Rufus more helpful over time," the company wrote in a blog post.

Amazon's AI-powered shopping assistant Rufus launches in Europe today

Amazon's shopping-focused chatbot Rufus is launching throughout Europe, after coming to the US back in February. It starts rolling out today as a beta in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, after coming to the UK in September. This is a gradual rollout and the company says it could be a few weeks before every single user in the aforementioned countries receives a software update. To get started with Rufus, look for the icon on the bottom right-hand corner of the mobile app. This will open up the chat box. Customers can tap on this chat box to ask follow up questions or receive more information on a pre-existing query. This is a beta release, so Amazon encourages customers to leave feedback by "rating their answers with a thumbs up or thumbs down." There's also an option for more directed freeform feedback. For the uninitiated, Rufus is a generative AI shopping assistant that was trained on Amazon's entire product catalog, along with customer reviews, community Q&As and "information from across the web." It's a chatbot, so customers can ask Rufus questions about products and the like. For instance, users can ask Rufus if a particular pair of running shoes are durable or if a jacket is machine-washable. This is AI, though, so even Amazon admits that the information may not always be correct. "It's still early days for generative AI, and the technology won't always get it exactly right," the company writes. If you live in the US, you already have access to the chatbot. Just look for the tell-tale icon that looks like two chat bubbles, along with the name Rufus.