Amazon will end its Rufus chatbot and deploy its Alexa assistant as the core of its AI shopping strategy, CNBC reported on May 13.

Amazon has launched an e-commerce bot called Alexa for Shopping that integrates Rufus and Alexa+.

Amazon’s strategy is to provide a personalised AI shopping assistant using users’ shopping history and data.

Amazon has also added Alexa to its search results, so a chat window appears when users search for a specific product to provide information and recommended items.

Alexa for Shopping turns Amazon’s search box into a question-and-answer engine. It also supports product comparisons and an automatic purchase reservation function when a specific price is reached. It can be used without a Prime membership. The standalone Rufus chatbot will end, but Rufus recommendation features and shopping history will continue to be used for some Alexa for Shopping queries.

Daniel Rausch (다니엘 라우쉬), Amazon’s head of Alexa, said it was superior to other AI shopping tools because it can access data only Amazon has, including customer reviews, its vast product catalogue, inventory status and estimated delivery dates. "Shopping is not something you can treat as a side task," he said. "It is not at all surprising that other AI companies ended up eliminating shopping functions that lacked completeness or changing direction."

OpenAI, Google and Perplexity have launched AI shopping tools over the past year, but some are facing difficulties.

OpenAI ended Instant Checkout, a feature that let users pay directly in ChatGPT, early this year and shifted to a model of building dedicated apps with retailers.

As Alexa for Shopping is integrated into search results, it could affect millions of Amazon third-party sellers. They spend heavily on sponsored product listing ads, which account for most of Amazon’s advertising revenue. Rausch said ads would also be included in Alexa for Shopping when they are relevant and improve the shopping experience.