Amazon’s AI-driven systems, COSMO and Rufus, have been making waves in the e-commerce world. Sellers and buyers alike are buzzing about these technologies, curious about what they do and how they might reshape their shopping experience.

While a lot of online content tries to explain these innovations, it’s often a mix of facts and speculation.

In this blog, we’ll cut through the noise and explore the real deal behind COSMO and Rufus, using authentic insights directly from Amazon’s resources. Let’s dive into how these AI systems work and what they mean for the future of shopping and selling on Amazon.

Amazon’s AI Journey

Amazon started as an online bookstore, but over the years, it has evolved into an e-commerce powerhouse, thanks in large part to its early adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). From the late 90s, when it first introduced personalized recommendations, to its revolutionary voice assistant, Alexa, Amazon has consistently integrated AI into its core operations.

Alexa changed how people interact with technology, making it easier and more intuitive to shop, search, and engage with Amazon’s services. But Alexa was just the beginning.

Behind the scenes, Amazon uses AI in ways most shoppers don’t even notice—optimizing inventory, predicting customer demand, and streamlining its vast operations. The company also partners with AI industry leaders like NVIDIA to push the boundaries of AI applications. Today, Amazon is a global leader in AI innovation, constantly finding new ways to improve the user experience.

Now, with COSMO and Rufus, Amazon has taken things to the next level.

What is COSMO?

COSMO is an advanced AI system designed to enhance the shopping experience by understanding how people think and shop.

While many online shopping platforms already use large knowledge graphs to organize product details (like attributes and categories), they often miss out on understanding the intentions behind why customers search for or buy certain products.

COSMO bridges this gap by focusing on the “why” behind customer behavior. It collects data from millions of customer interactions to build a system that can predict what shoppers are really looking for, even when their searches aren’t specific.

Inferring Intent from User Behavior

Every time someone uses Amazon, they leave behind a trail of behavior—searches, clicks, purchases—that reveal subtle hints about what they might want or need.

But making sense of these clues is no easy task because users often leave out the intention in the search query and only type in the product or the general category they are looking for.

For example, if you search for “outdoor shoes,” Amazon’s challenge is to figure out if you’re preparing for a hiking trip or something else entirely. That’s where COSMO comes in.

COSMO is a sophisticated AI system designed to mine common sense knowledge from the millions of actions users take on Amazon. It doesn’t just look at what you’re buying; it tries to understand why.

COSMO establishes a relationship between users’ search queries and actions and infers the intention by connecting the dots between search and action. The following figure explains this process.

This common-sense understanding of human shopping behavior allows COSMO to make smarter, more personalized product recommendations, improving your search results even when your intentions aren’t immediately clear.

What makes COSMO different

Instead of focusing solely on product attributes, COSMO emphasizes user intent, which makes it unique compared to other AI systems in e-commerce.

By analyzing user behaviors across multiple product domains, COSMO generates common sense knowledge that helps Amazon suggest products you’re more likely to want, even if you don’t realize it yourself.

How COSMO Enhances Your Shopping Experience

Imagine typing “camping gear” into the Amazon search bar. That’s a broad term, and without context, you might get results ranging from tents to flashlights.

But COSMO takes things further. It understands various contexts in which camping captivity can take place. And by analyzing past user behavior, COSMO understands that people looking for “camping gear” may also need portable stoves or waterproof sleeping bags, so it refines the results to suggest the most relevant items.

The following image shows how COSMO organizes this knowledge.

This isn’t just about giving you products with the same name—it’s about understanding the whole experience you’re preparing for and offering recommendations that fit your needs. Over time, COSMO has been shown to increase product sales and improve customer satisfaction, making shopping on Amazon faster and more intuitive.

COSMO’s Impact on Search and Navigation

COSMO has had a measurable impact on how people navigate Amazon’s platform. In Amazon’s A/B experiments on 10% of US traffic, COSMO led to a 0.7% increase in product sales— a seemingly modest number, but one that translates into hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

Beyond boosting sales, COSMO also improved customer engagement by 8%, meaning shoppers are not only buying more but also spending more time interacting with the platform.

For online shoppers, this means less time sifting through irrelevant results and more time finding exactly what you need, with each search becoming more intuitive and personalized.

Enter Rufus: Amazon’s AI Shopping Assistant

If COSMO is working behind the scenes, Rufus is front and center, interacting with users in real-time. Rufus, powered by generative AI (GenAI), takes the personalized shopping experience to a whole new level.

Rufus is a shopping assistance tool designed to enhance the customer experience. Trained on Amazon’s vast product catalog and information from across the web, Rufus can answer shopping-related questions, provide product comparisons, and offer personalized recommendations—all within the familiar Amazon platform.

By facilitating product discovery and guiding customers through their shopping journey, Rufus ensures a more efficient, tailored experience.

It’s like having a virtual shopping assistant that understands not just what you’re looking for, but also how to guide you through your options.

Interesting fact: The story behind ‘Rufus’

Photo by JORDAN STEAD / Amazon

COSMO seems to be a cool name for an AI, but where does ‘Rufus’ come from? Amazon’s AI assistant Rufus is named after a special part of the company’s early history—a Welsh corgi named Rufus. In 1996, when Amazon had fewer than 20 employees, one of its first engineers, Eric Benson, and his wife Susan, the company’s first managing editor, brought their dog to work with Jeff Bezos’ permission. Soon, Rufus became a beloved figure at Amazon’s first warehouse. Rufus died in 2009, and today, the AI assistant Rufus continues that legacy.

How Rufus Works

Rufus isn’t just a chatbot. It uses advanced AI and natural language processing to understand your queries in a conversational, human-like way. Whether you’re asking for “the best laptops under $1000” or comparing running shoes, Rufus generates detailed responses instantly, making your shopping experience more intuitive.

It gets better—Rufus is multimodal, meaning it can process not just text but also images and other forms of data. So, if you’re searching for a specific type of product, Rufus can show you images and help you compare them side by side, making it easier to find exactly what you’re looking for.

How Rufus Enhances the Shopping Experience

Rufus provides a more intuitive shopping experience by helping customers in various ways:

• Product Research: Users can ask general questions like “What to consider when buying headphones?” to get helpful advice.
• Shop by Occasion: Rufus suggests products for specific activities, like “What do I need for cold weather golf?” or “How to start an indoor garden.”
• Compare Categories: Customers can ask Rufus to compare products, such as “What’s the difference between lip gloss and lip oil?” for better decision-making.
• Personalized Recommendations: Rufus offers tailored suggestions for gifts or specific needs.
• Product-Specific Queries: While on a product page, customers can get quick answers about product features, like “Is this jacket machine washable?” based on listing details and customer reviews.

This makes shopping on Amazon more efficient and personalized.

COSMO and Rufus: A Dream Team for Sellers?

While buyers benefit from more personalized recommendations, sellers also stand to gain. COSMO and Rufus help bring products to the right audience, even niche items that might otherwise get lost in the crowd. However, sellers need to tap into a wider context beyond simple keywords, increasing the chances of their products being recommended to the right customers.

What Sellers Need to Do To

effectively work with AI systems like COSMO and Rufus, brands should take the following steps:

1. Educate the Algorithm: Regularly provide the AI with information about your products by using relevant context of usage. This helps the system understand where your product fits best in the marketplace.
2. Optimize Product Detail Pages (PDPs): Make sure your PDPs are thorough and precise. Use high-quality images, clear titles, detailed descriptions, and concise bullet points to showcase your product’s key features and benefits.
3. Complete Product Attributes: Carefully fill out all relevant product attributes, including size, color, material, technical specs, and other contextual details. This information will help COSMO accurately categorize and recommend your products.
4. Leverage Customer Feedback: As search and navigation are becoming user-centric, customer feedback is now more important than ever. Sellers should actively monitor customer feedback and integrate it into their product listings. Highlight positive reviews and address any negative feedback to show your commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.

By taking these steps, brands can enhance their visibility and effectiveness on e-commerce platforms utilizing AI technology.

Future: What’s Next for Amazon AI?

As AI continues to evolve, Amazon is likely to expand the capabilities of both COSMO and Rufus. COSMO could one day help with even more aspects of e-commerce, from customer support to personalized marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, Rufus is already giving us a glimpse of a future where shopping is more conversational, interactive, and visually guided.

In short, Amazon’s AI innovations are not just changing how we shop—they’re transforming the entire online retail experience. Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, these changes are designed to make your experience smoother, faster, and more engaging.

Conclusion

COSMO and Rufus represent the future of e-commerce. By understanding user behavior and intent, Amazon’s AI systems are making online shopping more efficient and personalized. Whether you’re planning a camping trip or looking for the perfect winter jacket, COSMO helps you find what you need, and Rufus makes the experience even smoother with real-time, intuitive interactions.

For sellers, these AI advancements open new doors but also bring new challenges. As the world of online shopping becomes more AI-driven, the key to success will lie in staying ahead of the curve by optimizing listings, embracing new technologies, and making the most of what COSMO and Rufus have to offer.