Amazon starts testing ads in its Rufus chatbot | TechCrunch

Rufus, Amazon’s recently launched, shopping-focused chatbot, is getting ads soon.

That’s according to a changelog published by Amazon this week (first spotted by AdWeek), which states that sponsored ads could soon start appearing in placements for Rufus users in the U.S. Ads will be shown based on Amazon search and conversational context, Amazon says, and Rufus may generate text to accompany existing ad copy in certain cases.

“We continue to make enhancements to the Rufus experience, including improving brand and product discovery by introducing relevant sponsored ads that help customers discover selections related to their conversation with Rufus,” a spokesperson said.

The ads in Rufus test recalls Microsoft’s experiments inserting ads into Copilot, the chatbot in Bing and the company’s other properties, including Windows. AI being the costly endeavor that it is, it’s not exactly surprising that companies are looking for tried-and-true methods to generate a return on investment — or at least break even.