November 2025 Newsletter: How Amazon Rufus Changes How We Shop

Amazon’s AI technologies, Rufus and COSMO, were released in mid-June 2024, and they are steadily reshaping the way shoppers find products and how sellers optimize their listings on the Amazon marketplace. Together, they represent Amazon’s vision for an AI-driven shopping experience that interprets real customer intent, improves product discovery, and enhances decision-making across every stage of the customer journey.

Amazon Rufus: The AI-Powered Shopping Assistant

Rufus is an AI-driven conversational assistant available in the Amazon Shopping app and on. It allows shoppers to ask natural-language questions such as “What do I need for a new apartment?” or “What kind of cord comes with this charger?” and receive tailored, contextually relevant responses.

What are its key features and data sources?

• Rufus is trained on Amazon’s product catalog, customer reviews, Q&As, and web data to provide factual and comparative answers.
• It integrates directly into the Amazon shopping experience via a chat window for quick, guided decision-making.
• It learns from customer interactions, making results more relevant and conversational over time.
• It supports customers in product research, inspiration, and even order status tracking.

Amazon Cosmo: The Brain Behind the Experience

COSMO (Commonsense Modeling) is Amazon’s large-scale AI system powering search and personalization across its platform. While not customer-facing, it enables Rufus and Amazon’s broader recommendation engine to interpret shopper intent and context.

What are its core functions and data inputs?

• It uses commonsense knowledge graphs built from browsing behavior, purchase patterns, and content context.
• It aligns search and recommendations with how shoppers actually think and describe needs, not just with keyword matches.
• It informs semantic understanding and content prioritization, rewarding listings written in natural, customer-oriented language.

Changing the Seller–Shopper Dynamic

Rufus and COSMO shift optimization from traditional SEO toward semantic and contextual relevance. Sellers now compete on clarity, storytelling, and the usefulness of their product detail pages (PDPs). Listings with strong A+ content, lifestyle imagery, and conversational copy are more likely to surface in Rufus-powered results and COSMO’s ranking system.

For sellers, optimizing listings for Rufus readability with better visuals, descriptive phrasing, and question-based content ensures higher visibility and long-term competitiveness. These systems reward authentic, detailed, and customer-minded communication that reflects real shopping intent.

After learning that:

• Rufus is AI assistant answering shopping questions for a dialogue-like engagement using Amazon’s product and review data.
• COSMO is an underlying AI system that interprets shopper intent using commonsense knowledge.
• Sellers who adapt to semantic, visually rich, and conversational optimization will lead the next era of Amazon commerce.

It’s time to start applying this insight to your upcoming Q1 optimization strategies. SEO optimization might be enough for customers to find your listings, but when they arrive, they will need tools like Rufus to help guide them through the information that matters to encourage a purchase. If your visuals and listing copy don’t provide this level of context yet, now is a great time to invest in that level of Amazon catalogue maintenance.

Celebrating Our Experts

Congratulations to Krishiel Agnes, our Creative Strategy Executive Partner, for winning the BBE Make Your MARK Award! Krishiel has been recognized for her dedication, reliability, and strong sense of accountability. Her consistent excellence and character shine through in everything she takes on, making her a steady and valued teammate.

The Ultimate Holiday Advertising Checklist

Looking for a Q4 reassurance on your holiday ecommerce strategy? Our partner Spreetail has created the Ultimate Holiday Advertising Checklist for Ecommerce Leaders to give you some extra guidance and support for the busy sales period ahead.