Rufus: Your AI Shopping Assistant

Need some help with your holiday shopping?

Amazon wants you to ask Rufus.

If you look carefully, you may notice a new button on the Amazon app; it's the colourful one in the lower right corner of the photo at the bottom of this post.

When I clicked it, a chatbot named Rufus introduced itself to me.

My youngest son's seventh birthday is next week, and my wife and I still haven't bought his birthday present...

... so I thought I'd ask Rufus for some help.

I gave Rufus a prompt, and Rufus provided me with five viable gift suggestions I can confidently say my son would like.

(I'm confident because he already owns three of the five suggested products.)

As a consumer, I'm very interested in how Rufus could make it much easier for me to buy what I need to buy this holiday season.

As a marketer, I'm very interested in understanding how the algorithm might decide to choose (or not choose) products to recommend, how that might impact company sales...

... and what Amazon might allow companies to do to influence the recommendations Rufus provides.

Perhaps one day in the not-so-distant future, Rufus might become your favourite AI shopping assistant...

... and Amazon's most profitable salesperson.