How to use Rufus AI to shop smarter on Amazon

AI can help everywhere your email programs to fast food establishments. Now Amazon is looking to take part in the AI ​​revolution with help AI a bot called Rufus that can answer questions, research products, and help you make good buying decisions on Amazon.

Maybe you’re stuck on a gift idea for someone special in your life, or you need to compare two products against each other. From asking about your active orders to checking the details of what you’re about to buy, Rufus can help, and here’s how you can find it.

How Rufus works and where to find it

If you’re familiar with AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini, Rufus is very much in the same vein. It is learned on “Amazon’s extensive product catalog, customer reviews, community Q&A, and information from the web,” which it then sorts, aggregates, and summarizes to answer your questions.

However, these bots don’t just copy and paste information — they’re designed to generate fresh and original answers, so (as always with these AI models) mistakes can be made. Amazon says that Rufus “may not always get it right,” so it’s worth double-checking important details — don’t assume anything Rufus sells is 100 percent correct, and don’t share any personal information with him.

If you use the Amazon Shopping app for Android or iOSyou’ll find Rufus to the right of the bottom navigation bar (the Rufus logo is two dots with a star next to it): tap the button to open the chat window and start asking questions. If you buy through Amazon websiteyou’ll see a Rufus button on the left side of the toolbar at the top.

Right away, Rufus will suggest questions — some of which may be related to recent searches or recent purchases. Click or tap on any of the suggestions, or enter your own question or prompt, and Rufus will jump into action.

After each answer, you get the opportunity to ask additional questions (Rufus will remember the history of conversations) and rate the answers received (using the “Like” or “Dislike” buttons). You can clear your chat history in Rufus, but only in the app, not on the web: tap the three dots (top right), then select Manage chat and Clear chat history.

Questions and tips to try with Rufus

Rufus knows what you’re looking at on the Amazon platform, so you can ask him questions about the product you see on the screen. For example, you can ask how much the item weighs, what materials it is made of, or how the battery lives. In some cases, the bot makes a direct link to something in the list.

By going beyond individual product pages, Rufus can answer shopping questions more generally. You may want to ask which tool is best for a particular job, whether two specific items compare against each other, or what a particular item actually does (and how). You can also ask about trends in product categories and find out, for example, what is popular with other shoppers.

You can be quite creative with these questions. For example, you might ask about the tools and materials needed to build a garden shed, or about gifts that would be appropriate for a 5-year-old’s birthday, or about extras that might be needed for a dinner party. Any advice you need, Rufus will try to give you a few hints.

This is where Rufus becomes more like other generative AI chatbots: If you’re stuck for shopping inspiration or you’re not sure how to compare two types of TV technology, you can get answers. The questions you ask don’t necessarily have to be specific to what’s being sold on Amazon, although you’ll likely see links to some related products on the site.
Finally, you can also chat with Rufus about the status of your current orders or when you last ordered (for example) packing tape. Sometimes you’ll get a direct answer, and other times you’ll be given a link to the relevant page on Amazon’s website that you can follow. And if you, by the way, are wondering how Amazon came up with the name, it has to do with one of Amazon’s first employees.