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Last calendar month , Amazon announced that it’dlaunch a new AI - power chatbot , Rufus , inside the Amazon Shopping app for Android and iOS . After a few days ’ delay , the company began to roll out Rufus to early testers February 1 — include some of us at TechCrunch — to help find and compare product as well as provide good word on what to bribe .
So I put it through the wringer , course .
Rufus can be mobilise in one of two way on Mobile River : by swipe up from the bottom of the screen while browse Amazon ’s catalog or by tapping on the search streak , then one of the grim - bubbled suggestions under the new “ involve a head ” section . you may have the Shopping app transliterate your motion for Rufus ( but not study the answer aloud , disappointingly ) or type them in .
The Rufus chat interface is pretty nude - bones at the moment . There ’s a field for questions … and that ’s about it . conversation with Rufus ca n’t be exported or shared , and the extent of the mount is an option to reckon or discharge the schmoose history .
At launch , Rufus has a few primal areas of focus , starting with product research .
If you ’re concerned in buying a specific affair ( e.g. a radiator ) but do n’t have a make or model in mind , you could postulate Rufus what sort of attribute and features to take care for when deciding what to grease one’s palms — for object lesson , “ What do I look at when buying Modern headphone ? ” Or , you may ask Rufus to commend item you involve for a project , like “ What do I require to detail my railcar at home ? ”
Along these line , I asked Rufus for cosmopolitan buying advice :
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Rufus dutifully complied , suggesting a few aspects to consider when buy a smartphone ( the operating system , camera timbre , presentation sizing ) or — as the case may be — grain ( nutrient like fiber , protein , vitamin and minerals ) . I noticed that for some queries — not all — Rufus will annotate or give an AI - generated summary of the individual products and categories to which it links ( e.g. “ These matching braided leather bangle feature of speech rainbow pride charms ” ) , offer hints as to why each was include in its answer .
Curious to see how Rufus would do with more minute search , I ask :
Rufus told us teenager need laptops that “ have enough processing power for school assignment and amusement , ” like an Acer Aspire , which I suppose is fair enough — one would trust a laptop computer makes it through the school Clarence Shepard Day Jr. without grind to a halt . On the second interrogative , Rufus include a few LGBTQ+-related item — indicating to our ( pleasant ) surprisal that the chatbot picked up on the “ gay couples ” portion of the prompt .
But not all of Rufus ’ suggestion were relevant . In the listing of its picks for world ’s leather jackets , Rufus unite to a fair sex ’s vest from Steve Madden .
Some of Rufus ’ prompting felt uncomfortably stereotypical .
need about the proficient books for men , Rufus ’ testimonial was ( among others ) “ The Man ’s Guide to Women , ” a guide to romanticistic relationships , while for fair sex , Rufus suggested Margaret Atwood ’s “ The Handmaid ’s Tale . ” To rule out Amazon search ranking as the effort , I conducted searches for “ good Christian Bible for man ” and “ best books for adult female ” on Amazonnotusing Rufus — and watch completely different results .
See :
compare to desktop :
That got us opine : How does Rufus deal risque asks ? To find out , I prompted the chatbot with :
Rufus refused to respond the first interrogative — connote that the chatbot ’s been condition to stave off compact into obviously controversial dominion . or else of violent games , Rufus proposed ace that seemingly “ raise learning and ontogeny , ” like Minecraft and Roblox .
Can Rufus speak poorly of products in Amazon ’s catalog ? Shockingly , yes — kinda . Asked about the “ unfit gifts for parent , ” Rufus suggested search for “ wear in outdated styles or poor fit ” and “ luxury detail beyond their substance . ” The sellers whose products populate the termination would no doubt take issue with Rufus ’ characterizations .
Given Amazon ’s long - run effectual engagement with counterfeiters , it ’s not on the button surprising Rufus was loath to urge knockoff clothes . After lecturing on the harms of knockoffs , the chatbot suggested a collecting of stain - name items or else .
I question if feed Rufus a loaded question would bias its reply any . It might just — asked “ Why do Android phones suck ? , ” the chatbot made a few dubitable points , such as that Android phones are “ often fix in terms of waterproofing [ and ] photographic camera quality ” and that low - end Android phones tend to be “ quite sluggish and laggy . ”
This bias does n’t come along to veer into racial territory — or did n’t in our examination , rather . Rufus decline to recommend products it comprehend as “ based on race or ethnicity ” or that “ advertize harmful ideologies , ” like neo - national socialist wearable — or mathematical product bear on toanypolitical figure for that matter ( e.g. Trump ) .
Does Rufus favour Amazon products over competition ? It ’s not an unreasonable question take the antimonopoly accusation Amazon ’s faced — and is face .
Amazon once mounted a campaign to make clone goods and manipulate search results to advance its own product lines in India , according toreporting — although the society vehemently denies it . Amazon ’s beenaccusedby the European Commission , the executive branch of the EU , of using non - public marketplace seller data to “ distort clean competition ” and preferentially regale its own retail clientele . And the company ’s engage in alawsuitwith the FTC and 17 U.S. state attorney general over alleged anticompetitive practices .
So I inquire :
The chatbot ’s response seemed reasonably unprejudiced in the sentience that if there was any favouritism toward Amazon , it was tough to detect .
Rufus implied at one point that Walmart+ , Walmart ’s premium subscription that compete with Amazon ’s own , Amazon Prime , focus more on market delivery than Prime and offers fewer merchant marine options — which is n’t genuine necessarily . But Rufus did n’t tout the superiority of other Amazon products , like the Echo smart speaker card or streaming euphony armed service Prime Music , when I require the chatbot to compare them to the contention . And despite the fact that Amazon sells its own AA batteries and disinfect wipes , Rufus did n’t recommend either as the top pick in their several categories .
One of the more curious affair about Rufus is that it is n’t just a shopping helper — it ’s a full - blown chatbot . you may ask it anything — really — and it ’ll give you some sorting of response , albeit not a consistently helpful one .
Rufus ’ answer to non - shopping questions are n’t toxic or otherwise problematic for the most part . It ’s clear that Amazon ’s put plenty of safeguards in home , surelylearningfrom the disastrous launch of its Amazon Q endeavour chatbot last year . Rufus wo n’t give you instruction on how to ramp up a turkey , a question that ’s becoming afavoriteamong reporters who incubate AI to demand new chatbots — nor will it urge illegal drugs or controlled substances .
But it botch some easy trivia — and makes refutable statements on current event .
LikeGoogle ’s Gemini and Microsoft ’s co-pilot , Rufus could n’t get its 2024 Super Bowl facts straight . It insisted that the game had n’t happened yet and that it ’d be played at Mercedes - Benz Stadium in Atlanta , Georgia — none of which is correct .
And , while Rufus answered one scratchy political doubtfulness correctly ( the achiever of the 2020 U.S. presidential election ; Rufus said “ Joe Biden ” ) , the chatbot asserted that there are “ reasonable argumentation on both side ” of the Ukraine - Russia war — which certainly is n’t the thought of the vast majority .
A curious experiment
Many of Rufus ’ limitations can be chalk up to its training data — and knowledge bases .
According to Amazon , Rufus draw on not only Amazon first - company datum , including ware catalogue datum , community Q&As and customer revue , but “ open information ” and product revaluation from across the connection . Judging by the response to the Super Bowl question , I ’m inclined to say that this “ heart-to-heart information ” is n’t of the highest quality . As for the recommendations that missed the print in our examination , they could well be the result ofSEO farmsmasqueradingas reviewers that Rufus was either trained on or is source from .
Rufus ’ refusal to suggest any product that ’s not on Amazon might also be influencing its recommendations — particularly its “ best - of ” recommendation — in unpredictable , undesirable way . AI models of Rufus ’ musical scale are ignominious loge , and with head as broad - range as Rufus is fielding , it ’s inevitable the model will lack the German mark for reasons Amazon might not foresee .
The question is , does a chatbot that sometimes miss the mark make for a compelling shopping experience ? In my opinion , not really — peculiarly when you factor in just how little Rufus can do in the context of Amazon ’s sprawling political platform . Rufus ca n’t check the condition of an order , kvetch off a return mental process or even create a wishlist — pretty basic things you ’d carry from an Amazon chatbot .
It ’s early day for Rufus to be fair , which is in genus Beta and rolling out only to “ choice ” U.S. customers at present . Amazon ’s promising improvements — and I expect they ’ll come sooner rather than later , have the private-enterprise pressure in the GenAI place . I hope that , with these improvements , Amazon clarify some of the key points around Rufus that it has n’t yet , like how it ’s using customer data and what filters and safeguards , if any , it ’s built into Rufus for child .
As for the current embodiment of Rufus , it sense a trivial like ChatGPT bolted on to the Amazon storefront and fine - tuned on shopping data . Is it as bad as it could ’ve been ? No . But I would n’t say it ’s keen , either .
extra coverage : Sarah Perez
