A Shopper's Best Friend?
Meet Rufus, Amazon's new AI helper
To hear the related 5-minute audio file that I uploaded today as my Morning Journal flash briefing for Alexa devices, please click on the play button:
The Kindle Chronicles Podcast is 16 Today
I posted the first episode of my podcast on July 26, 2008 here in Ocean Park, Maine. Today’s episode, an interview with Amazon’s Austin Masterson about Prime Day, will be the 718th show.
In my conversation with Austin this week, I learned about Rufus, a new AI shopping helper who now appears on my iPhone Amazon app. Rufus was quietly introduced during Prime Day last week.
I love that Amazon named their bot Rufus.
The original Rufus was a Welsh Corgi owned by Amazon’s principal engineer, Shel Kaplan. Rufus accompanied Shel to work, and ever since then, Amazon has been an unusually dog-friendly workplace.
Company lore has it that early Amazonians would sometimes have Rufus click a button to send a website live, using his paw.
I summoned digital Rufus yesterday to help me find a cable to connect my Seagate hard drive to my MacBook Air. He quickly identified several options, including an AmazonBasics cable for $4.99.
Rufus is not going to put ChatGPT out of a job any time soon.
When I tried to find my conversation with him, there appeared to be no way to do it. And when I asked for help finding an Ember temperature-controlled coffee cup that I want to give to my coffee-savvy friend Mark Roberts, Rufus weirdly pointed me to an insulated mug not made by Ember.
But I applaud the effort here, and I will consult Rufus on future shopping trips to Amazon.
I am also looking forward to trying the AI-enhanced Alexa that Amazon teased at a preview of new products and services that I attended in September of last year at HQ2 in Arlington, VA.
Recent reports predict a launch of Smart Alexa by the end of this month, for a new monthly subscription cost.
Sign me up, Rufus!