Amazon entered the consumer chatbot fray on Thursday, unveiling a new artificially intelligent personal shopping assistant as it races to catch up with other tech giants.
Amazon says customers can use the Rufus tool to ask questions about products directly from the search bar in its mobile app. The AI will then respond in a conversational tone. Examples provided during the presentation included a comparison of different types of coffee makers, gift recommendations, and additional questions about the durability of running shoes.
Rufus will be available to “select customers” starting Thursday, and to more customers in the coming weeks, according to the post. Amazon did not provide details about how many people would participate in the initial release of the tool.
Amazon allows employees to bring their dogs to work, and a dog named Rufus was one of the first to roam the company’s offices in the company’s early days.
Amazon is scrambling to dispel the perception that it has missed the wave of AI tools unleashed by startup OpenAI over a year ago when it released its ChatGPT chatbot. If customers find his Rufus useful and popular, Amazon could revolutionize the business of product search and give them more control over their online shopping experience.
Rufus “allows customers to discover products in a completely different way than on an e-commerce website,” CEO Andy Jassy said on a conference call with investors. “It’s seamlessly integrated into the Amazon experience, which customers are familiar with and love being able to take action on,” he said.
Microsoft and Google released chatbots and AI tools for their search engines last spring, often focused on shopping-related uses, and startups like Perplexity are redesigning the search experience with AI in mind. Trying to.
In the fall, Amazon released an enterprise chatbot called Q for customers in its cloud computing sector, and the company said it was working on making its voice assistant, Alexa, more conversational.
Even without generative AI, Amazon’s search bar and the top results it generates is one of the most important placements in online retail. These are the subject of antitrust investigations, and the product ads that appear in search results are the foundation of the company’s burgeoning advertising business.
When looking for a specific product to buy, consumers are more than twice as likely to search on Amazon first compared to other search engines. But the e-commerce giant has long hoped to attract customers at a time when they are still brainstorming and researching options, when they typically turn to other sources such as TikTok and Google. . Rufus is an attempt to lure customers into Amazon before he knows exactly what they want.
“If you know exactly what you want to do, you can search for it in the search bar,” Brian Olsabsky, the company’s finance director, said on a call with reporters Thursday. “Rufus will be more than happy to help you with your explorations. He may also be able to assist you if you have more questions.”
“It will be like a conversation with Amazon,” he said.
The Rufus tool is “trained on Amazon’s extensive product catalog, customer reviews, community Q’s and As’s, and information from across the web,” the company says.
During the earnings call, Jassy said that customers can ask Rufus for recommendations on the best golf balls to use to improve spin control or the best rain jackets for cold weather, and he said, “What’s important?” “You’ll get thoughtful explanations of product recommendations.”
If Rufus takes off, Amazon could take advertising sales away from Google and social media sites where companies try to influence customers’ purchasing decisions.
Amazon itself advertises heavily on Google and social media apps, trying to lure customers early in the shopping process. Google has also been trying to invade Amazon’s turf for years, launching several shopping initiatives to attract independent sellers, but with little success.
Separately on Thursday, Amazon reported strong fourth-quarter profits, helped in part by the holiday season.
Revenue for the quarter reached $170 billion, an increase of 17% year over year. The company’s profit was $10.6 billion. The results exceeded analysts’ expectations and Amazon’s own expectations.
The services the company provides to third-party sellers on its marketplace, such as fulfillment and shipping, and the advertising it provides to brands and sellers had particularly strong quarters.
Investors are focused on Amazon’s most profitable areas: cloud computing and advertising. Advertising revenue rose 27% to $14.7 billion, and Amazon Web Services revenue rose 13% to $24.2 billion, exactly meeting investor expectations.
Over the past year, the company has cut tens of thousands of jobs, ended speculative projects, canceled some expansion plans and reorganized its logistics operations to be faster and more efficient. The company achieved a record high quarterly operating profit and expressed confidence that its profitability will continue going forward.
