Amazon is integrating Alexa Plus into Amazon.com, integrating the artificial intelligence assistant directly into the company's shopping experience.
See also: Amazon is preparing an Alexa phone
Starting today, when you type a question into Amazon, you'll be talking to Alexa for Shopping, the company's new shopping assistant, powered by Alexa Plus. So while a search for "toilet paper" will still return the usual list of brands, typing "What's a good skincare routine for men" or "When was the last time I ordered AA batteries" will now trigger a response from Alexa.
Alexa for Shopping replaces Rufus AI and, unlike Rufus, will be at the heart of the Amazon app and website. According to the company, the AI assistant will take on all of Rufus' responsibilities and bring a few of its own.
At launch, Alexa’s Shopping capabilities include setting price alerts, comparing items, and automatically reordering products. It can automatically purchase items for you based on parameters you set, such as when something drops below a certain price at a certain time — “Add this sunscreen to my cart if the price drops to $10 and I haven’t bought it in 2 months.”
See also: Amazon's Alexa+ arrives in the UK
Alexa for Shopping can also shop for you on other websites, via the somewhat controversial Buy for Me, track a full year of price history for a product, and automatically search for products and deals for you using “scheduled actions.” All of this can be done simply by saying what you want in the search bar.
The service doesn't require an Alexa account and is open to all Amazon customers in the U.S., with availability increasing in the coming weeks, according to Daniel Rausch, vice president of Alexa and Echo. In addition to the main search bar, the Alexa for Shopping assistant will also be available in a dedicated Alexa for Shopping chat window.
While Alexa for Shopping is a merger of Alexa and Rufus, its key differences are that it’s “deeper integrated, more capable, and available everywhere,” Rausch said in an interview with The Verge. You can access the assistant across all your Amazon and Alexa devices, creating “continuity across devices.”
Additionally, Rausch said Alexa for Shopping has a broader scope, leveraging a range of models and logic to answer your questions. Along with information from Amazon.com, it will pull from the internet and use whatever knowledge it has about the customer, “determining a very specific answer to your question,” Rausch said.
See also: Amazon: Three new “personality” options for Alexa
You'll also get a more personalized experience if you have an Echo smart speaker or a Show smart display, Rausch said, using a science project example. If you interact with Alexa Plus on a smart speaker, such as asking for project ideas, when you go to Amazon.com and type in your question, it will provide customized suggestions based on your past interactions.
