Shop smarter this Prime Day: Amazon's ChatGPT-like Rufus saves you time and money

Amazon Rufus, AI assistant for the Amazon mobile app answering a query about kids birthday party games and supplying answers with recommended products.

(Image credit: Amazon)

The emergence of AI over the last few years has promised to paint a new image of the future ahead. However, in the meantime, Amazon believes it has found a way to use this tech to help shoppers find the best deals and products online, just in time for Prime Day 2024.

Amazon Rufus is a new ChatGPT-like AI chatbot in the Amazon Shopping app designed to help make shopping on the company's digital marketplace easier than ever by providing up-to-date and detailed information on products and deals.

Amazon Rufus: What can it do?

Amazon's chatbot is very similar to how OpenAI's popular LLM (Large Language Model) ChatGPT works. Users can 'talk' to Rufus using natural language, and the chatbot uses its access to Amazon's vast catalog of content to help provide the best and most fitting answer.

However, Rufus is far more advanced than automated chatbots that you may have encountered on various websites before. Rufus can answer in context, providing answers to almost everything you could wish to ask.

That can mean finding you the best deal on air fryers big enough to feed a family of four or helping to bridge the generation gap with a list of Prime Day deals that make an excellent gift for those Gen Z younglings.

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Amazon Rufus in use showcasing its ability to answer detailed product enquiries for customers. — (Image credit: Amazon)

Answer product queries

Rufus is able to provide detailed answers about products on the Amazon marketplace, cutting down the time it takes for customers to get all the information they need.

Answer further questions

The AI talents of Rufus excel at being able to provide more than just a direct recommendation to a product. Oftentimes, we may know what we want to buy and why we want to buy it, though we aren't sure if a product is suited to that need.

Rufus is able recommend specific products based on how we want to use them, ensuring we never get lumped with a product that doesn't measure up to our needs ever again!

Rufus is currently available to all US Amazon customers using the Amazon Shopping app (available on iOS and Android). Just make sure your app is up-to-date and tap on the Rufus chat bubbles at the bottom right of the app to begin your AI-assisted shopping this Prime Day.

Amazon Rufus, getting started instructions for using Amazon's AI chatbot — (Image credit: Amazon)

Shopping on Prime Day: By humans, for humans

Of course, not everyone might be comfortable making purchasing decisions based on the guidance of a soulless machine whose entire purpose is to sell you things.

While there's nothing wrong with making purchasing suggestions, it helps when there's a person behind those recommendations with genuine experience within that category — if not hands-on experience with the product itself.

Yes, technology has found impressive ways of getting information to us faster than ever before, but will anything ever truly replace the human element when it comes to making recommendations about what and when to buy?

Can we say for certain that a human can challenge Rufus' expansive knowledge of every Amazon listing out there? Not at all.

However, what Rufus can't do is understand the power and impact of a purchase on your day-to-day life while ensuring you get the most bang for your buck by purchasing the right product for the lowest price (even if that means stepping outside of Amazon's marketplace).

Prime Day deals with Laptop Mag

As Laptop Mag deals editor Hilda Scott once taught me, "Friends never let friends pay full price for anything." And that's a motto we've run with for years of Prime Day, Black Friday, Back to School, and Holiday sales coverage.

With Prime Day 2024 kick-starting tomorrow, there's never been a better time for potential buyers to look to the human element when making a purchase.

At Laptop Mag we're hoping to make this year's Prime Day a positive one for you by providing expert recommendations on all of the products we've been privy to, reviewed, or taken a personal fancy to over the years.

Man holding Prime Day boxes against blue background — (Image credit: Amazon)

With that in mind, Rufus be damned, we've been hard are work pulling the best deals from around the web together in a number of roundups tailored to the tech-invested that cover everything from a general rundown of the best Amazon Prime deals to the best MacBook deals this Prime Day.

So, If you prefer your buying recommendations to come with the experience of an expert, and not from the contents of a digital catalog, be sure to check out some of our fantastic work in rounding up the best deals for you ahead of Prime Day.

We'll also be publishing spotlight deals throughout the week to ensure that our audience is clued up and in the know about some of the most impressive deals we come across this Prime Day, be it from Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Newegg, or any other digital retailer that's offering you the best bang for your buck.

With that in mind, be sure to follow Laptop Mag on Twitter, Facebook, and Flipboard to catch all of the best Prime Day deals recommended by our writers and reviewers heading your way throughout the week.

Rael Hornby, potentially influenced by far too many LucasArts titles at an early age, once thought he’d grow up to be a mighty pirate. However, after several interventions with close friends and family members, you’re now much more likely to see his name attached to the bylines of tech articles. While not maintaining a double life as an aspiring writer by day and indie game dev by night, you’ll find him sat in a corner somewhere muttering to himself about microtransactions or hunting down promising indie games on Twitter.