Rufus, the artificial intelligence assistant that helps with shopping on Amazon, is available to a small circle of users.
The e-commerce giant has launched it, for now only in English, explaining part of how it works.
The chatbot cross-references various public data available, including buyer reviews, community questions and answers and product descriptions, to answer users' questions when they are on Amazon.
The AI is also able to provide follow-up responses, i.e. consequential to what it wrote before.
An example is when you ask Rufus "What are the best running shoes to buy"?
and then, once the answer is obtained, "Are they durable?" is added.
The company views the assistant as customers' one-stop shop for all their shopping needs, so much so that it plans to roll it out across all of its major markets soon.
Rufus can also give contextual recommendations, with detailed product information based on specific activities (like hiking) or events (holidays or celebrations).
Other examples include asking you to compare product categories and brands, including by price.
"It's still early days, but we will continue to improve our AI models and refine our responses to make Rufus more useful over time," Rajiv Mehta, Amazon's vice president, wrote in a statement.
Once available, you will be able to interact with the AI by entering the Rufus chat window, at the bottom of the website and mobile app.
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