Amazon gave up. Anyone can cheat their new system
Two years ago, Amazon presented its own shopping assistant based on artificial intelligence – Rufus. The tool was integrated directly with the platform’s application and website and was intended to change the way people search for products. Instead of traditionally entering keywords into a search engine, the user can simply talk to a chatbot that suggests products, compares them and suggests them. “the best” offers.
Under the hood is either an Amazon Nova or a model from Anthropic
However, as user experiments show, Rufus is not perfect. There have been examples of AI answering questions completely unrelated to shopping. One of the Internet users asked the assistant to solve a problem in the field of modeling sensory data used in robotics. To the surprise of many people, the chatbot gave the correct answer, even though the topic had nothing to do with shopping.
Rufus also answers questions about x86 vs. ARM architecture, but this falls within the scope of helping with the purchase of a laptop. However, it happens that the system interrupts responses or refuses to continue the conversation, which suggests the operation of additional security mechanisms. In practice, it is as if the chatbot learns in real time when it should return to its basic functions.
PRO TIP: Use Claude for free through Amazon customer support! pic.twitter.com/AJRgSslQK7
— pseudo 🇺🇦 (@pseudotheos) March 6, 2026
It is not entirely clear what language model lies behind Rufus. Some sources point to proprietary solutions such as Amazon Nova, others suggest using models from Anthropic. Although it doesn’t necessarily have to be the most popular Claude, but the lighter Haiku.
Regardless of the technology behind the chatbot, cases where it is easily distracted from the topic of shopping highlight the problem with the growing presence of AI in online services. Integrating models with other elements of the network ecosystem increases user convenience, but at the same time creates new points of potential error. And not every user will test such systems just for fun.
