Amazon's internal forecast suggests a $700 million financial gain from its AI shopping assistant Rufus

Amazon's CEO Andy Jassy projects Rufus to indirectly contribute over $700 million in operating profits this year. Rufus' product recommendations increase consumer spending on Amazon's marketplace. Amazon plans to expand Rufus globally and enhance its AI model for better service. According to an internal planning document obtained by Business Insider, Amazon expects Rufus to indirectly contribute over $700 million in operating profits this year.

The outlook is part of a metric called "downstream impact," an internal financial figure Amazon uses to measure a product or service's potential to generate additional consumer spending across Amazon's vast offerings. For example, Rufus' product recommendations can lead to more purchases on Amazon's marketplace — and an increase in its DSI. Rufus, a free service that answers everything from product details to special promotions, generates no direct revenue.

Rufus AI Shopping Assistant Expansion

Based on this metric, Rufus lost an estimated $285 million in 2024. By 2027, however, it is expected to reach $1.2 billion in DSI profit contributions, the document showed. The estimates, after operating costs and server payments, include the income from ads placed within Rufus' responses to user inquiries.

The bullish forecast may explain why Amazon is aggressively expanding Rufus and its other AI search offerings. Rufus, which launched in February 2024, has received mixed reviews from early users, but Amazon continues to invest in this space. Just last week, Amazon unveiled another AI-powered shopping discovery app called Interests. Last year, the company disclosed that Rufus answered "tens of millions" of customer questions in its first six months of operation.

Rufus's Impact and Future Plans

It also shows how Amazon justifies its investment in one of its flagship AI products, even as DSI has received more scrutiny lately. Amazon has significant expansion plans for Rufus. This year, Amazon expects $711.7 billion worth of products on its site to be eligible for Rufus's many features, like product recommendations and comparisons, up from $164 billion in 2024, according to the document. That number is expected to reach $849.8 billion in 2027.

Amazon also wants to roll out Rufus to at least 13 international marketplaces this year. Currently, Rufus is available in the US, the UK, and India, and a handful of European countries. Amazon plans to fivefold the size of the AI model powering Rufus to improve the quality of its answers. With the planned improvement, Amazon hopes to launch a new service that leverages Rufus to provide a wider selection and "seamlessly purchase on behalf of the customer," it added.

Challenges and Future of AI Shopping Assistants

Amazon isn't the only retailer with a homegrown AI shopping assistant. Others, like Walmart, Target, and Instacart, have launched their own AI-powered search apps in recent months. These apps may still be in their infancy. A recent survey by e-commerce analytics firm Profitero showed that just 10% of US customers used a retailer's AI chat assistant when searching for products.

For Rufus, the other challenge is negative reviews. Andrew Hamada, a former Amazon employee who now runs seller agency Reason Automation, wrote on Linkedin last month that Rufus misses basic catalog information and often gives inaccurate answers. Still, Amazon's retail CEO Doug Herrington remains a strong supporter of Rufus, stating that AI-driven "personalization" is a major focus area for Amazon.