Shopping can be difficult if you don’t know what you want yet. Even if you do know, it can be difficult to figure out all the details as you scroll through thousands of reviews or product specifications. Fortunately, Amazon’s new AI helper, Rufus, can help streamline the process in many ways.
Rufus is Amazon’s helpful AI in the Amazon mobile app
Rufus can ease the burden of online shopping in many ways. It can answer specific questions about products, search Amazon for certain types of items, summarize the pros and cons mentioned in product reviews, and more. For now, Rufus is only available on the Amazon mobile app, not on their regular website. So if you want to give it a try, you’ll need the app. Once the app is installed, tap the small orange and blue button in the bottom right corner of your mobile app to launch Rufus.
The funny thing is that Rufus can also do a lot of things that he probably shouldn’t do. Even though it’s meant to help you with your shopping questions on Amazon, it can actually answer completely unrelated questions just like a normal chatbot. I got it to give me estimates of the time it would take to drive from Boston to New York and even to give general medical advice. That said, I wouldn’t recommend using Rufus for that.
A screenshot of the Amazon mobile app with a red arrow pointing to the Rufus AI.
You can make much better use of its strengths by using it to recommend clothing sizes, summarize product descriptions and the like. However, keep in mind that Rufus, like all generative AI, is not perfect. They can make mistakes and confidently present incorrect information. In my experience, Rufus tends to get most everything is correct, but there have been a few cases where it made a mistake and didn’t even realize it.
I wouldn’t take Rufus’ word for something so important that going wrong would ruin everything, but it’s still a useful tool. As for how exactly this tool can help you, there are many ways it can make your shopping experience easier and more enjoyable.
Request generated summaries of customer reviews
If you’re like me, you don’t really rely on product descriptions to spruce up the item you’re looking for. After all, a seller is trying to make money, so he won’t tell you about the shortcomings of his product, and he will always do his best to make it sound great. This is where customer reviews come in: no one is more honest about their experience than a customer who is dissatisfied with their purchase.
That said, it can take a lot of time to read dozens or even hundreds of reviews, especially if you want to try to understand the perspectives of both the one-star and five-star reviews. Rufus can help you with this. While you’re on the product page for the item you’re interested in, open Rufus and ask him to summarize reviews. Usually it gives you a fairly simple summary that highlights highly praised aspects of the item.
A screenshot from Amazon’s Rufus AI summarizing the reviews for a foot bath product.
For example, I asked Rufus to summarize reviews for a vacuum cleaner, the Shark Navigator NV356E. The first summary of the review was brief, noting that reviews often praised its light weight, strong suction, and great maneuverability. To get a more robust overview, all I had to do was ask Rufus for more details. Then came a variety of things discussed in the reviews, including accessories, the dust cup, the self-cleaning brush roll, and more.
It’s probably still worth checking out the bad reviews for an item you’re interested in, but using Rufus to get review summaries will give you a good first impression of the product and what’s good or bad about it. That said, how useful this is all depends on how much you do trust the reviews left for the product in the first place.
Ask specific questions about product specifications
Have you ever struggled to figure out if a product has a niche feature that you really care about? Whether or not the item is rechargeable, or whether the hoodie you are looking for has a Sherpa lining? Sometimes that information is hidden somewhere in the description. Other times it’s seemingly not mentioned at all. Either way, you can ask Rufus to look up this information for you if necessary.
Now Rufus can’t bring up information that doesn’t exist. For example, there were a few hoodies I looked at where the product description didn’t explicitly state what fabric the lining was made of. Even if I ask Rufus, there’s nothing to fall back on. That said, if someone in the reviews mentions it, the AI helper can get an answer there too.
A screenshot of Amazon’s Rufus AI answering a specific question about a Nerf Gun.
If you search for a particular product or open a product page and then go to Rufus, it will also automatically suggest some popular product questions asked by other people. For example, when looking at a flat-screen TV, Rufus recommended some popular questions, such as “how intuitive is the smart platform to navigate” and “does it support the Dolby Atmos audio format?”
These suggestions are helpful because sometimes you don’t even know what you need to know about the product until you are asked the right questions. In any case, Rufus is very helpful in providing answers to specific questions about products if you can’t find the answer yourself. Make sure to double check the information if it is really important that it is absolutely correct. After all, there are many product reviews on Amazon are also written by AIso that can lead to misinformation.
General assistance such as order status, product categories and more
You can also use Rufus to give you more general help while shopping in Amazon’s mobile app. For example, I bought a few gifts for my family this year and it can be annoying to keep track of the status of their orders: such as whether they have been shipped, what the estimated delivery date is, or have been canceled. All you have to do to get all that information is ask order status with Rufus. If you are logged into your account, that information will be retrieved quickly.
A screenshot of Amazon’s Rufus AI providing information about a user’s order status.
Rufus is also very useful if you don’t have an exact product in mind, but you know what type of product you want. I’m very picky about my hoodies and I like them to have zippers and a sherpa lining. I can give those specific details to Rufus, and out pops several hoodies that fit my parameters. If I want to get more specific, I can tell Rufus to only show certain brands as well.
Using Rufus in this way is a good way to generate ideas when you don’t know exactly what you want. That said, you may have to put some work into your prompt to get the types of items you want, but the more specific you can get, the better your recommendations will be.
You can also contact Rufus for general product advice afterwards. You can ask who a gift might be suitable for, inquire about recipes, or even discuss how certain products can help you with a home improvement project.
There are many ways this new AI helper in Amazon’s mobile app can add value to your shopping experience. There is undoubtedly more you can do than what I have talked about here today. Keep in mind that AI is not infallible and can sometimes make very convincing mistakes. After all, it’s not really artificial intelligencedespite the name.
Be sure to double-check its output if it’s really important, and use it only as an aid and not as a replacement for your own product checking.