Amazon is killing its AI assistant Rufus and replacing it with Alexa.
Amazon is rolling out Alexa for Shopping in the U.S., an agentic AI assistant that combines the standalone AI assistant Rufus with Alexa, Amazon’s longtime AI assistant. According to Amazon, Alexa for Shopping combines the two AI assistants’ knowledge about products and makes personalized recommendations based on customers’ shopping history.
Alexa for Shopping is built directly into the search bar of Amazon’s website and apps, whereas Rufus primarily appeared as a chatbot in the corner of screens. Amazon customers do not need to have an Amazon Prime account to use Alexa for Shopping, which can create shopping guides, find deals, automate routine purchases, and view a product’s price history for up to a year.
