Amazon launches AI assistant ‘Rufus’ in India

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ETtechLast Updated: Aug 27, 2024, 04:29:00 PM IST

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Amazon has launched AI assistant Rufus for customers in India, which will help shoppers get product recommendations, compare customer responses etc. It is available in beta mode for now. It was rolled out to all customers in the US in July.

Ecommerce major Amazon India has launched its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered shopping assistant ‘Rufus’ in India, the firm said in a statement.

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Rufus is currently available in beta mode in India, and available only to some customers, Amazon added. The assistant can help shoppers get product recommendations, access shopping list advice, compare product categories and see what other customers have said in response to their specific questions. Rufus will be rolled out to more customers “in the coming weeks”, Amazon said.

The chatbot was first announced in the US in February this year, after which it was rolled out widely to all customers in the US in July. It has been trained on Amazon's own data around product catalogue, community discussions and customer reviews, among other things, and runs on an internal large language model (LLM) specialised for shopping.

“It’s still early days for generative AI, and the technology won’t always get it exactly right. We will keep improving our AI models and fine-tune responses to continuously make Rufus more helpful over time. Customers are encouraged to leave feedback by rating their answers with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and they have the option to provide freeform feedback as well,” Amazon said in a statement.

The assistant will be visible on the bottom right of the navigation bar, following which a chat dialogue will appear. Customers can expand the chat dialogue box to see answers to their questions, tap on suggested questions, and ask follow-up questions.

In October last year, rival Flipkart had launched its own shopping assistant called Flippi, powered by Open AI’s ChatGPT. Amazon's announcement also comes ahead of the highly anticipated festive season sales in India.