Two years after launching Rufus with a lot of fanfare, Amazon is shutting it down.
The bot is not gone, though. It got swallowed.
Its tricks now live inside a new tool called Alexa for Shopping. The real news is where Amazon is putting it.
Alexa Goes Where The Money Is
Alexa for Shopping is being placed right into Amazon's search results.
Search for an item and a chat box pops up. It shows you info and a few picks.
The bot can match items side by side. It can also wait for a price drop and buy then.
You don't need a Prime plan to use it.
That sounds great for shoppers. For sellers, it's a problem.
Sponsored product listings make up most of Amazon's ad cash. Third-party sellers pay big to rank high in those search results.
Now Alexa is sitting in that same space. It could change which items shoppers see first.
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Why Rufus Didn't Stick
Daniel Rausch is Amazon's top Alexa boss. He didn't dance around it.
Rausch said other AI tools have failed at shopping. They were just scraping web results and dropping them in a chat.
Real shopping needs more. It needs live stock data, real reviews, and ship dates.
Amazon has all of those things. Most AI firms don't.
Rausch took a shot at rivals, too.
Earlier this year, OpenAI shut down its Instant Checkout tool. The tool let users buy right from ChatGPT.
OpenAI then shifted to working with shops on apps inside its chatbot.
"Shopping is not something you do as a side quest," Rausch said.
Amazon Still Blocks Outside AI
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the firm is "having conversations with" outside AI agents. He expects to partner with them at some point.
So far, it's mostly been talk. Amazon still blocks many outside bots from its site.
The firm also launched "Buy for Me." That tool lets Amazon's own AI buy from rival shops on the user's behalf.
Some shops got mad. They said they never opted in.
OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have rolled out their own AI tools and agents in the past year that threaten to disrupt online shopping. Each one is fighting for a slice of the online sales pie that Amazon owns.
Amazon, for its part, plays defense by keeping its site closed off.
What To Watch
The third-party seller crowd is the group to watch. They built their firms on Amazon's search ranks.
Alexa for Shopping just changed how those ranks work.
If sellers can't get to the top of the chat, they may need a new plan. Some may shift more spend to ads. Others may move parts of their work off Amazon.
That fight is just starting. It will play out in earnings calls, on seller blogs, and in court if it has to.
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